He needed to consult with Rith, whom Greaves kept very close these days in his Geneva penthouse. At this point, Rith was more a lapdog than a useful tool in the war, but he had a well-developed Third ability to ride the future streams and had predicted a slaughter at the Convent, something Casimir hadn’t taken seriously since it was only one of several outcomes that had shown up in the future streams.

Yet the slaughter had happened, which was why Caz needed to figure out what had intruded to disrupt his moment of glory.

For just a moment, he pondered Fiona Gaines, the woman Warrior Jean-Pierre obsessed over in the growing tradition of the breh-hedden. Caz knew she had emerging powers.

But what kind of powers? How had she known to warn the warriors about the attack? He had read her powers previously, more than once. She had tremendous telepathic ability. However, beyond that, she was truly a disappointment. She could barely fold from place to place. She couldn’t throw a hand-blast. She had no preternatural speed. In some ways, her connection to the Warriors of the Blood was a complete mystery.

And yet, with all that lack of power, she had saved them all.

When Sloane’s crying ceased and when the boys grew relaxed against his shoulders, he lowered them to their feet and, taking each hand, walked them back to their bedroom, where their au pair stayed. She was a Second ascender, quite a gifted horticulturalist, great with children, and lovely to behold.

Greaves had recommended her when his beloved wife died. Of course, he’d abducted her and made a little mischief with the memories of those closest to her. He kept her partially enthralled all the time so that she would remain content with her surroundings. The effort required some energy because she was very powerful.

But enthrallment couldn’t answer for her character. A mean person enthralled was still very mean. Greaves had been right. The woman was, therefore, kind, loving, firm when necessary and never vicious, the perfect babysitter.

As he watched her draw Sloane onto her lap and stroke his unruly blond hair, he marveled at the airy waves of her long curly red hair. If not for the color, she would have looked positively angelic.

“Tazianne, I’ll be leaving for a couple of hours. Make sure the boys have their baths then put them to bed.”

“Very good, monsieur.”

He closed the door and headed out to hunt. At some point, he felt certain he’d solve the mystery of Fiona’s warning, but for now he turned his attention to the pleasures before him.

Time to hunt.

Some choices just suck.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Translation into the modern vernacular

Chapter 4

At eleven thirty in the morning, Thorne held his tumbler of icy Ketel One in his hand and tried to keep the damn thing from shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was post-battle adrenaline or the fact that Fiona had communicated with Marguerite. He took a sip and let the fire burn down his throat. He drew in a deep breath.

Hands still shaking.

He leaned his hips against the pool table, which had somehow miraculously escaped damage in the last few months since it had been replaced. Must have been a record, but then with Marcus out of the picture but two nights a week, Medichi traveling the globe, and Kerrick anxious to get home to his wife and baby after battling till dawn, there was a helluva lot less testosterone being thrown around these days.

He sipped again, savored another burning slide, and finally his fingers were a little less shaky.

He’d rarely taken his eyes off Fiona from the time she touched down at the Cave. He was trying to figure out how to separate her from Jean-Pierre so he could talk to her for a couple of minutes, find out exactly what she knew about Marguerite.

The whole situation was eating him alive.

Damn but Fiona was another beauty, all right. She had dark wavy hair, though not quite as dark as Parisa’s or Marguerite’s for that matter, more reddish gold. Fiona’s eyes were blue, but much lighter than Alison’s, and on the silver side. If she hadn’t been a loving kind of woman, her eyes could have been called icy. But with a face that always measured everyone else with expressions of concern, ice was the last word he’d ever use to describe Fiona Gaines.

She was also tall, like the three other women who’d become brehs to their warriors. Was height some sort of indication the women were meant for the breh-hedden? None of the Warriors of the Blood was shorter than six-five. Jean-Pierre was no exception. So, Fiona, at close to six feet, was a match for him.

Marguerite, on the other hand, was a full foot shorter than Thorne, only five-five, so it looked like she couldn’t be his breh if height were a requirement. Of course, her lack of height hadn’t made one damn bit of difference in bed. He’d taken her every which way from Sunday over the decades. He took a sip of Ketel to keep from smiling. Marguerite was an experimental sort of woman, always game for the most outrageous gymnastics.

But she wasn’t tall.

And she didn’t have a special scent, either, which of course meant that even though Marguerite had become his goddam raison d’être, she could never be his breh.

He should have felt relieved. Instead, the whole thing bugged the shit out of him.

And what the hell did it mean that Marguerite had been able to contact Fiona and deliver a warning about an attack at the outdoor chapel? He knew his woman was an extraordinarily gifted Seer, but had she really been in the future streams just before the attack? And how had she been able to contact Jean-Pierre’s breh?

He was as confused as hell.

One thing he did need to know, however, was how much Fiona knew about Marguerite. No one knew about her, certainly not her name. But here was Fiona, not five months in the Metro Phoenix Two area, and she knew his woman’s name.

Jesus H. Christ.

For the past five minutes, he’d been trying to figure out how to approach her and have a private conversation without Jean-Pierre listening in. Damn preternatural hearing.

For the past century, since he’d first hooked up with Marguerite, he’d been keeping her a secret from the brotherhood. He didn’t exactly care if they knew, but he feared Endelle knowing more than anything. Yeah, she’d have shipped Marguerite off to the Superstition Fortress in the blink of an eye—after, of course, a significant negotiation with the High Administrator of that hellhole, Owen fucking Stannett.

He suspected Fiona knew something he didn’t want her to know, and he had to swear her to silence. God help him if Endelle found out about Marguerite because he honestly didn’t know what he would do, where his loyalties would fall. Truth? He couldn’t lose Marguerite. Even thinking about it made him feel like he was flying apart inside.

Sweet Jesus!

When Fiona glanced at him, he held her gaze for a long moment. He knew he was frowning, but he was trying to get a message to her without opening a telepathic channel. Holy hell, if Jean-Pierre knew he’d tried to converse with his breh mind-to-mind, without permission … well, let’s just say the shit would hit one big motherfucker of a fan.

You didn’t mess with a warrior’s breh on any level, and that included telepathy.

She returned his frown with one of her own then turned to Jean-Pierre. He could have listened in, but he kept his hearing tight.

He wasn’t surprised when, after an exchange of words, and a scowl directed at him by the Frenchman, she crossed the rec room to him.

She didn’t exactly smile; more like an uneasy curve of lips. “I thought you might want to talk,” she said quietly as she drew near.

He could feel the frown between his brows. He crossed his arms over his pecs, holding his tumbler off to the side. “So,” he said in true brilliant fashion since nothing else came to mind.

Fiona’s gaze shifted away from him, maybe trying to figure out what to tell him. She blinked several times. Finally, she looked back at him. “Shall I tell you everything?”

He released a heavy sigh. “Yes. Please. But keep it low.”

She nodded then laid it out. She had a measured way of speaking, restrained. She was very careful. Again, no doubt the result of having lived in captivity.

When she told him that Marguerite had said she was his woman, he mumbled a few curses then spoke through pinched lips. “No one knows.”

“I figured that much since it was the first I’d heard of it. I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to but, is she your breh?”

He shook his head back and forth, and his Ketel sloshed around. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Have you been together long?”

He met her gaze. Now that the cat was out of the bag, and because she’d somehow gotten stuck in the middle, he said, “About a century.”

Her brows rose. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope, not kidding.” His thoughts darkened as he thought about the last hundred years. Shit.

“I got the feeling she’s desperate to get out of there.”

“Yeah, more so lately. Her abilities to ride the future streams have become more … pressing for lack of a better word, even taking her over at times. She isn’t so much riding them as they’re riding her. It’s getting to her.” He was surprised, suddenly, at how good it felt to just talk about his horrible situation.

“Is that how she knew to warn me about the attack?”

“I think so. She’s … gifted.”

“What do you think it meant that we both heard church bells? At first I thought they were the Convent bells, but Jean-Pierre couldn’t hear them.”

“I’m not sure.” He shook his head back and forth. “We don’t have anything like that on Second Earth. It might be some kind of Third Earth ability.”

Thorne got a really sick feeling that the woman in front of him and his woman were connected somehow. This couldn’t be a good thing. The last year had been a nightmare, what with Alison’s frightening ascension and all the trouble that had ensued since: the increase of death vamps at the Borderlands, the attempt on his own life, Parisa’s abduction and recovery, a horrendous battle over the Grand Canyon that took the lives of a thousand Militia Warriors.