Endelle traveled through her mind like warm water. The movement was gentle—quite a contrast with the woman’s rattler-like temperament.

Parisa knew when Endelle found the voyeur link, because pain snatched at her, deep searing pain that caused her to push at Endelle’s arms and fall backward on her bottom next to the railing.

She drew her knees up to her chest and tears flew down her cheeks unbidden.

“Jesus,” Endelle cried. “What did you do that for?”

Parisa looked up at her and scowled. Antony had dropped down beside her. “You okay?” He asked that a lot.

But Parisa met Endelle’s gaze. “That hurt like hell. What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Endelle cried. “Not a damn thing. I got to the link and looked at it.”

“It felt like fire inside my head.”

Endelle shrugged. “You’ve just confirmed the truth that only the author of the link can break it. I could barely get near it without causing pain.”

“Do you think it’s Greaves?” Antony had a hand under Parisa’s arm, and she leaned on him as she scrambled to her feet.

“I couldn’t tell but from everything you’ve just told me and from the burning sensation, I’d say yes, this smacks of that pansy-ass bastard.” She huffed a sigh. “Well, ascender Lovejoy, there’s nothing more I can do here and, unlike you, I have to get back to work. But no more whining, goddammit.” She lifted her arm and like that she was gone.

That was it? That was all the help she was going to get from the most powerful vampire on Second Earth? Great.

Parisa was about to turn to Antony and say something to him, but a wind came up with grit flying in her face that stung, a wind that had Endelle’s signature all over it. She cried out and Antony moved in front of her, muttering a string of curses.

“Fuck,” he said. “She can be such a bitch.”

“You know,” Parisa said, “she really wasn’t much help, was she?”

Antony chuckled. “She has her moments. This wasn’t one of them. Let’s get back to the villa, we’ll do some flying then more work with the dagger and sword. I’ll download a few more memories if you like.” He paused and met her gaze. He still stood in front of her. She watched his chest rise and fall in a heavy sigh. “I won’t force a mind-link on you. Even though it’s a good idea and I really want you safe, I think this must be hell for you right now.”

“Yeah, it is. But you know, I think Endelle is right about one thing. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself and I’m going to try to do better.”

Antony put his hand on her shoulder, gave her a gentle warning, then she was flying through nether-space.

The stories told of Luchianne, the first vampire, always mention her royle wings, which were said to produce inexplicable flames.

—From Treatise on Ascension, Philippe Reynard

Chapter 17

When Medichi got Parisa back to the villa, he remained in the foyer with her. He drew his warrior phone from the pocket of his jeans and ran his thumb across the smooth black exterior.

“Carla here. How may I serve?” It was still daylight so Carla was on duty. Jeannie showed up at dusk, and for an hour or two their schedules would overlap.

“Hi, Carla. How’s it going?”

“Hello, Warrior Medichi. Just fine. We’re cruising the grid. I have two of my techs in here today just to keep the search progressing as fast as we can.”

“Nothing yet?”

“Sorry. We have aerials of both the Burma anomaly and the Toulouse anomaly so we know what we’re looking for but we really need to narrow the search down. We’re over China, where it’s light right now, but so far it looks clean.”

“Parisa just did a quick voyeur. The sky is still very blue, wherever it is that Rith has the women.”

“That’s good. Right now we’re looking at anything from Beijing to Sydney, anywhere that the sun hasn’t set.”

“That’s a lot of ground.”

“Yep. Thanks for checking in.”

He thumbed his phone then slipped it back into his pocket.

He turned to Parisa. “The grid is somewhere over China right now.”

“Good. We’re getting closer. “

He nodded. “I’m trying to be sensitive here, so bear with me. I know Endelle was adamant about a mind-link and I think it’s a good idea, maybe even a necessary one. But because of your voyeur-link with that bastard—” He clenched his fists then struggled to relax his hands. He took a couple of deep breaths. “Anyway, if you don’t want to create a mind-link with me right now, I’d be okay with it. Honestly, with all that you’re going through, I think this should be your call.”

Her eyes widened. “Thank you for that, Antony. I really appreciate it.” After a moment she added, “Why don’t we hold off on that for a little while. The headaches—” She blinked and her mouth fell a little. “Wait a minute. Antony, I just realized we could play Greaves with the voyeur-link.”

“How?”

“Well, so far it seems to me that Greaves never connects instantly, so there must be a slight delay for him when I open the link. I’ve been able to take these peeks at Fiona, but there’s no flash of pain. The whole pattern is so obvious to me now. But I could establish my own pattern of voyeuring innocuous things, let him check in and watch, then get bored and leave. That might disrupt him just enough to ensure we get the slaves out.”

“Damn, that might just work,” he said.

She smiled. “I’m going to try it now.”

She closed her eyes and for the next few seconds he watched her. She winced then took a deep breath, but he could tell she was sustaining a voyeur. The whole thing lasted a good long minute.

Finally, she opened her eyes and smiled once more. “I panned your library that whole time. Right at the beginning, after a few seconds, I felt the usual sudden pain. But then I think the master got bored.” She even laughed.

“Then we can use your knowledge of the process to our advantage.”

Her smile broadened. “Absolutely.”

Medichi smiled and something warmed in his chest. Here she was, stuck with a fucking voyeur-link to the vilest vampire on the planet, and she was laughing. She ought to be rewarded.

Though he considered taking her back to bed, he knew there was something else she loved doing, a lot.

He smiled at Parisa. “Well, how about a flying lesson?”

The sheer joy on her face tightened his chest. He loved that she wanted to fly, he approved of her drive to learn to use Second Earth weaponry, and he really admired the way she was putting her life on the line for Fiona.

She didn’t have to do anything she was doing. No one had required her to ascend, but she had. No one demanded that she help rescue the blood slaves, but from the beginning she’d insisted on front-and-center involvement. The woman was game and breh-hedden or no breh-hedden, Parisa was revealing the truth of her character left and right and dammit, he respected her.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she cried. “I’ll need to change into flight gear. I’ll be right back.”

She started to head into the formal living room, clearly intending to walk to her room, but he called after her, “Fold, Parisa.”

She turned back, a faint frown between her brows. He smiled as he said, “Dematerialize. Remember? You can do that now.”

“Oh,” she said. “I forgot.”

“Work that muscle along with everything else. Rith knows now that you have dematerialization capacity, but he’s fast. If he catches even the tip of your finger while you attempt a fold, he’ll be able to take you with him wherever he wants to go and we’ll be back where we started.”

She nodded, closed her eyes, thought the thought. She vanished. She returned almost as quickly. She smiled at him then lifted her arm and dematerialized again.

That smile. Her smile. She seemed so pleased with herself. As well she should be. Damn, the woman could fold and she’d only been a vampire for how many hours? Christ, it hadn’t even been a full day.

When she returned, she wore Havily’s old flight gear. The tight black leather, which would have fit Havily perfectly, was just too small for Parisa and didn’t he love it, perverted bastard that he was.

Without thinking too much about it, he folded off his T-shirt.

“What are you doing?” Parisa cried.

He glanced at her face and saw that her cheeks were flushed, and not from embarrassment as her gaze skated over his shoulders, his chest, his arms. He couldn’t help but flex his biceps and pecs just a little. He smiled, way too smugly no doubt, as her lips parted and she blinked a couple more times than necessary.

He knew what he looked like; he’d had plenty of women over the years take delight in his body. He knew the effect he had. But when a swell of her tangerine scent, softened by a layer of scent that was just her, crossed the few feet between them, his body responded.

He lowered his chin and finished closing the gap so that he had his arms around her in a nanosecond. But her hand flew to his chest, not to welcome him or to touch him, but in protest. “No,” she whispered. Yet the glitter in her eyes told another story.

He didn’t try to push her hand away, at least not with his hand. Instead, he pushed against her hand with his chest. The movement caused his pecs to swell. She watched his chest then licked her lips. Her elbow gave way from the pressure and he enfolded her in his arms, her hands between them, her fingers plucking at his skin and at the fine hairs between his pecs. She seemed to like doing that.

He kissed her, a soft dragging kiss that elicited a girlish moan. Antony drifted through his head.

He loved the sound of her voice in his mind. He worked his arms a little farther around her. He eased one leg beside her so that his hips met hers. He ground against her and let her feel what he wanted her to feel, the hard length of him. She could blame the breh-hedden all she wanted, but she was beautiful and sexy as hell. What more did a man need?