Caris Roane - Wings of Fire (Guardians of Ascension)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to my agent, Jennifer Schober, for all the wonderful conversations about the Guardians of Ascension.

To Rose Hilliardlady, you rock!!!

Danielle Fiorellathank you so much for the best covers in publishing!

Laurie Henderson and Laura Jorstad, again thank you so much for taking care of my beloved Antony and Parisa.

I am once again so very grateful to Anne Marie Tallberg and Eileen Rothschild for continuing to bring my winged vampires to market.

And as always, many thanks to Matthew Shear, Jen Enderlin, and the amazing team at SMP.

My Beloved

In the twilight I think of him He sees me in the wonder of his eye I allow the air to breathe He does not move with swift feet His thoughts turn to me imagined I wait beyond the faint boundary of time He does not rush

My steps are measured I have known his love from the beginning I perceive his beauty angled, firm He is earnest in his movements Love rises on wings of fire Maria Medichi (AD 707732), translated by her husband, Antony, 1845

The search is futile

When carried out by the avenging heart.

Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

CHAPTER 1

In the last three months, since the abduction of his woman, Antony Medichi, out of Italy in the late Roman era, had become a killing machine. He had steel for bones and molten iron for blood. He rarely slept. He battled death vampires at night, sending to perdition any who crossed his sword. But during the day, when most of the pretty-boys were asleep, Antony bled his wrists on his altar and hunted rogue vampires on Mortal Earth, searching for the woman hed lost.

Those hunts also ended in death. Not his.

He stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon, Mortal Earth, looking down, tracking a death vampire flying in the shadows. Even though he was far from the touristy areas, he still cloaked his presence with a heavy concentration of mist, a preternatural creation designed to confuse the average human mind. Most mortals simply couldnt see him, and right now he didnt want to be seen.

Antony stared into the abyss. The profound silence across the canyon formed a strange juxtaposition to the visual feast. The Grand Canyon was all for the eyes, not for the ears. But he hadnt come to admire the view or embrace the quiet.

His predatory gaze followed the death vampire flying below, legs straight back, glossy black wings glinting in the early-morning sunshine. Hed been hunting this particular bastard for weeks now. All clues had led here. This pretty-boy had known both Eldon Crace and Rith Doonwa, two sons of bitches who had harmed women belonging to the Warriors of the Blood. Both vampires deserved death. Crace had already gotten what he deserved, and within the depths of Medichis mind Rith Doonwa, the fiend who had kidnapped his woman, was a death waiting to happen, nothing more.

Three months ago, Medichi had served as Parisa Lovejoys Guardian of Ascension. Shed entered his world as an anomaly, a mortal-with-wings, a woman of extraordinary preternatural power in need of protection from the enemy. No one, except the first ascender, had mounted wings on Mortal Earth. But Parisa had. Shed also arrived with the ability to voyeur, a power that allowed her to focus on an individual or a place and see what was happening in real time, even in an entirely separate location, or a different dimension.

So much power, and beauty, and a strong analytical mind.

But all these immense gifts and abilities paled in comparison with the call of the breh-hedden, the myth of vampire mate-bonding, that had proved as real as the air he breathed. She was his breh, his mate, the one destiny had selected for him, the one he craved .

He hadnt asked for a mate. He hadnt wanted one and he sure as hell didnt deserve one, but shed come, hed served as her guardian, and shed been abducted on his watch.

So here he was, a wrecked shell of a warrior, struggling to find his way back to her.

When Rith had abducted Parisa, hed not only blocked his tracewhich indicated an enormous amount of powerbut also deceived Medichi with a hologram of Parisa that lasted for at least half a minute. Medichi didnt know anyone, not even any of his warrior brothers, the powerful Warriors of the Blood, who could create a hologram. So, yeah, Rith had power, which made him a clever, dangerous opponent.

But the death vampire working the airstreams of the Grand Canyon had known Rith. He had answers, and Medichi meant to have them. Right now. This morning.

His heart pumped hard in his chest.

The death vampire flew close to the canyon walls as though trying to hide in the shadows. Medichi smiled the hard smile that tended to work his jaw at the same time. Did the death vamp actually think to hide in a place this size?

Medichi bound his hair not in the ritual cadroen as he was supposed to, but with a narrow leather strap over his forehead, tied at the back of his head so that his long warrior hair flowed free. He was uncivilized now, a wild beast hunting for what was his by right, for what had been taken from him.

He had his wings at close-mount, tight to his body; any breeze would send him off the canyons edge otherwise. But now it was time to take care of business. With the practice of thirteen centuries, he spread his wings to full-mount, adjusting with infinitesimal shifts to balance the air currents, then launched into the empty airspace over the canyon.

A rush of pure adrenaline shot through his heart then sent dizzying endorphins into his head. There was nothing like flight, nothing like falling off a cliff and knowing that spreading his wings to their farthest span would catch, hold, then carry him where he wanted to go.

With a slight adjustment, the barest drawing back of his wings, his body shifted at an angle that meant down, and down he started to fly. Down and down, into the varying degrees of cool shadow and warm light as the canyon walls jutted and receded.

He was close now, his quarry an eighth of a mile away, less, less, a hundred yards now.

The bastard looked up. Shit. Maybe Medichis shadow had crossed him.

Panic seized the pretty-boys eyes and he banked left, then drew his wings into close-mount. He threw his arms forward as though diving, his body now aimed in the direction of the Colorado River.

Medichi didnt hesitate. He folded his wings close to his body and, instead of flying in long pulls through the air, became a missile and headed with fierce intent after his prey.

The bastard was good and he was old, which meant he had power, speed, and lots of fucking skill.

But then so did Medichi. He had never mounted his wings during battle, but he flew, a lot. He practiced, a lot. And now he smiled, his jaw twitching.

The mile-deep canyon walls sped past him, the striated layers of rock blending into an orange-beige fusion as he jetted toward the blue-and-white ribbon below. Closer.

He could almost touch the bastards foot.

Closer.

If he could wrap a hand around his ankle.

Closer.

The waters rose up and up.

Shit.

The death vamp leveled off just three feet above the water but Medichi took a huge risk, kept his missile shape for a split second longer, and just as the death vamp started to plow air Medichi caught his ankle and jerked him down, straight into the frothy rapids of the river below. At the same time, with the steel of his bones, the molten iron of his blood, and a swift mental command, he snagged his levitation ability and threw his wings into parachute mount, cupped at the top, to keep from plunging into the frigid water.

The death vamp wasnt so lucky. His wings went under, and he surfaced screaming because the water had trashed them. The mesh superstructure that held the feathers in place was fairly fragile, and the smallest injury hurt like a bitch. This tumbling in wild waters would be a form of torture. As the current dragged him in a heap, tossing him over and over, the death vamp screamed each time his head breached the water. He landed back-first against an enormous rock. Medichi heard the crack as well as another shriek.