I hold him in the palm of my hand,
He presses me to his chest.
His heart thunders through my mind.
Oh, my beloved bleeds for me,
One drop, then another
Until he is spent
And I am satisfied.
-- Collected Poems, Beatrice of Fourth
Chapter One
"You're standing in front of the grid, Jean-
Pierre." Fiona Gaines tried to push her warrior away, her
formidable Guardian of Ascension, but for all his leanness
the man was a rock.
"Because you do not listen to me, cherie. And I need
you to listen. I do not think you should go to the
christening today."
She finally looked up at him, something she avoided as
much as she could. The vampire was a pain-in-the-ass, but
if she met his gaze, her mind started sinking into a pile
of mush and not because of his enthrallment skills but
because he was, well, Jean-Pierre.
He was tall, a beautiful six-five to her five-eleven.
When she wore heels, she matched him so perfectly that her
lips reached his neck, so of course she avoided wearing
heels. His eyes were the color of stormy seas, a gray-
green-blue. He had strong cheekbones, reckless long
blondish, brownish, curly, wavy hair, which he held back in
sculpted scraps of pastel brocades, a leftover affectation
from revolutionary France days.
But his body was one powerful thrill waiting to happen,
a warrior's body, so muscled, so lean, that her fingers
trembled when he was close. She avoiding touching him, but
sometimes in her dreams she would spend hours roving her
hands over every solid inch of him. Every inch of him.
Worse, however, was that he had a scent that kept her
very female body in a state of almost constant arousal, a
scent that was completely ridiculous. He smelled like the
best cup of coffee every brewed on the face of two worlds,
yet at the same time, that coffee was laced with something
so male that even standing here, looking at him, her tongue
tingled.
A smile touched his lips, those full lips with the upper
points that were so kissable. Damn him. He knew exactly
what she was feeling since for him, she had the scent of a
French patisserie. The universe could often show a
surprising sense of humor. They were almost a cliché;
coffee and donuts. Okay, so he said she smelled like light
buttery croissants. Still.
"Fiona." A Militia Warrior across the grid called to
her and, thank God, broke the spell.
She had to step around Jean-Pierre to actually see
Eric. "What have you got?"
Her heart rate kicked up a notch. She knew Eric well
because of how much time she spent at Militia Warrior
Headquarters in Apache Junction Two. Three others worked
the grid, at least four on deck around the clock. With
satellite hook-ups, the grid could be moved to any set of
coordinates around the globe day or night, and the land
hunted for anomalies.
Central Command, attached to the ruler of Second Earth,
also had a grid, but they kept theirs fixed on the Metro
Phoenix area Two hunting for death vampire sign.
"Something just outside of Bangkok Two. Thailand."
She rounded the grid, which measured the size of a small
car, to join Eric on the opposite side. She wasn't
surprised when Jean-Pierre followed after her. To his
credit, he let her work. She had no doubt, however, that
the subject would rear its ugly head again.
After her release from blood slavery five months ago,
Fiona had been a woman on a mission. She obsessed about
finding Rith Do'onwa, the main instrument behind the
heinous slavery system, and she obsessed about bringing
home as many of her fellow slaves as possible. Out of
twenty-two known facilities, they had found six, and
brought home a total of forty slaves, all women.
Eric had already enhanced the grid and there it was, the
signature, so hard to read, but fast becoming familiar to
her. She had a gift, she knew that. Eric and the other
MWs could find the infinitesimal smudges that constituted
an anomaly, but only she could see the hint of blue-green,
the color of the inside dome of Rith's mist, that indicated
they'd gotten a hit.
"Get Gideon on the com?" She didn't need to ask if
Gideon and his team of thirty-two warriors was ready to
go. That would have been an insult to one of the Thunder
God Warriors, the nickname for all Militia Warriors.
Nor did Eric ask what, when, or why. He made the call
and spoke in low tones.
A minute passed.
"Ready on your mark," Eric said.
She met his gaze and smiled. "Let them fly." It was
kind of a joke, vampires having wings and all. And they
couldn't exactly fly through the dematerialization fold
since wings were too fragile to bear the process. But Eric
smiled as he gave the order.
Eric set the communication system on loud-speaker.
Colonel Seriffe, the leader of the Thunder God Warriors,
wanted it that way. If there would be a battle, they'd all
hear it. Seriffe was all about keeping everyone connected,
informed, and aware.
Fiona glanced the length of the room. Over two dozen
women manned the communications along with MW section
leaders, like Eric, like Gideon. Most turned in her
direction, solemn, waiting.
Gideon's voice, low and quiet, hit the airwaves. He
issued orders then said, "No DV sign here."
Fiona didn't know when she had actually backed up into
Jean-Pierre, but his presence calmed her. He had a hand on
her hip and she felt his deep breaths. Her heart rate had
doubled. She couldn't help it.
She knew exactly what all these women were going
through, the despair after usually decades of serving as a
blood donor, the polite euphemism for a process that
involved taking a woman once a month through death and
resurrection by defibrillator to get at the addictive dying
blood. Death vampires, by the nature of their addiction,
had to drink their victims to death in order to get at that
last euphoric substance.
A hundred and thirty years ago, Fiona had been out
shopping when two death vampires, that only she had been
able to see, had abducted her from Boston the day after her
eleventh wedding anniversary. She had been the first
mortal woman to be partially ascended by Darian Greaves and
experimented upon. Back then, the draining of her blood
had involved big steel needles and rubber tubing. Greaves
would drain her blood, taking her to the point of death,
pump more blood back into her veins, and bring her heart
back to life with what she now understood to be powerful
hand-blasts from the palm of his hand.
Shortly after, Rith, who also had a great deal of
preternatural power, had taken over. Fiona rarely saw
Greaves after that.
Over the loudspeaker, she could hear Gideon breathing
hard as well as the sound of his battle sandals pounding up
a flight of stairs. She saw movement to her right.
Seriffe emerged from his office, a heavy scowl on his face
as he, too, listened.
Gideon's voice, too loud for the speakers, became a
shout. "We've got eleven women here!"
HQ erupted in cheers and shouts.
Fiona's eyes filled with tears.
Jean-Pierre leaned down. "Congratulations, cherie."
She caught his hand and held it tight. She struggled to
breathe and not to cry, but tears escaped anyway.
She could hear Gideon speaking, but not what he was
saying.
"Settle down, people," Seriffe called out.
Gideon relayed the information that all eleven were
alive and healthy.
Fiona slipped her BlackBerry from her pant pocket,
touched the screen and connected with the rehab center.
She let reception know that they'd be getting eleven new
arrivals.
The woman gave a little cry. "We'll take it from here,
Fiona. Well done."
Well done. She wanted to rejoice, she really did, but
that meant there were still fifteen other facilities, that
they knew of, and how many more women to rescue before she
could really begin to celebrate.
"Take a moment, Fiona," Jean-Pierre whispered. "This is
a good thing you have done."
How did he know? Could he read her mind?
She drew away from him and looked up at him. She
saw the deep compassion in his stormy eyes and then she
understood. He was a Warrior of the Blood. He had fought
for over two hundred years, from the first year of his
ascension, against the ongoing depredation of death
vampires. He knew the victory that the slaying of each
death vampire meant, but he also knew the persistent
frustration and despair that accrued because right now
there seemed to be no end in sight. The enemy, Commander
Darian Greaves, encouraged the creation of death vampires
since he used them as a significant weapon in his bid to
take over two worlds; Second Earth and Mortal Earth.
She nodded. She glanced at the clock on the wall. The
hour was eleven at night. She would have to go home soon
with Colonel Seriffe, her son-in-law at which time Jean-
Pierre would join the Warriors of the Blood as they fought
at all five dimensional entry points in the Metro Phoenix
area.
"Where will you be tonight?" she asked.
"Thorne likes to keep me at the downtown Borderland."
She nodded. She knew why. The downtown Borderland was
the closest location to Colonel Seriffe's home, where Fiona
now lived. Thorne knew that the situation for Jean-Pierre,
serving as her guardian, was something of a nightmare. He
looked it, too, with faint circles beneath his eyes. Even
relatively immortal vampires could show signs of strain if
they had to guard a woman twelve hours of the day, battle
death vampires another six, then toss and turn through a
restless sleep cycle.
Damn the breh-hedden, she thought. The former
mythological state of vampire mate-bonding had also reared
its ugly head. She was afflicted with what she thought of
as an inconvenient and terrible disease, but for whatever
reason, the breh-hedden really took a toll on the men, as
though it put all that testosterone on high-alert
constantly.
Hence, even in the perfectly safe environment of Militia
Warrior HQ, Jean-Pierre stuck close.
"Now, cherie, we must talk about the christening
tomorrow."
She cocked her head and planted her hands on her
hips. "I'm going and I don't care whether you think it's a
security problem or not. Alison has been a good friend to
me and bringing this baby into the world was no picnic.
She's a new mom, and I remember what that was like. She
needs my support and if you think at this late hour, after
having been a slave for over a hundred years, that I would
bail on her because of the threat of death vampires, then
you don't know me at all."