“One of my Seers, Brynna, had a vision of you in the cabin a month or so ago. That was all I needed to hear.”

Thorne glared at them both. He needed his woman away from what he knew would quickly turn into a battle zone.

Marguerite glanced at him, her brows raised. “My boyfriend’s getting impatient with us. You up to folding us out of here?”

Thorne mentally tripped over the fact that she’d just called him her boyfriend. Well, fuck him for liking it so much.

Diallo said, “Yes, of course.”

Diallo put his hand on Marguerite’s shoulder, a gesture that tightened Thorne’s stomach despite the necessary and innocuous nature of the contact. Even in a critical situation like this, the breh-hedden would have its say. The pair vanished.

He turned toward Arthur. “How much battle training have you had at the various camps on Second Earth?”

“Since I was a kid. I took to it.”

“Why aren’t you with the Militia Warriors?”

At that, something seemed to settle inside the young warrior. “I didn’t think the war would follow me here.”

Thorne so got that. Well, it wasn’t his place to judge why Arthur Robillard, great-grandson to Jean-Pierre, was here in a Mortal Earth rogue colony. But he also understood that even though Arthur’s intention had been to escape the war, the war had found him anyway, and probably for a reason that would be a blessing to the villagers.

“They’re coming,” Arthur said.

“Yep.” Thorne turned in a circle, stretching his preternatural hearing. He could hear the soft pads of footsteps through the forest.

“I’m hearing seven, maybe eight.”

Thorne glanced at him. “You can hear that?”

Arthur nodded, his gaze fixed forward.

“Looks like Jean-Pierre’s genes found a home.”

Arthur smiled just off to the left side of his mouth. Sweet Jesus, he’d seen that smile on Jean-Pierre’s lips. The Robillards had kinda strange lips but he knew for a fact that the women went for them, a full lower lip and the upper more pointed than most. It was so strange seeing Jean-Pierre in this kid’s face.

Thorne looked up and down the village. The homes were scattered down a narrow valley on opposite sides of a stream. The air was cold, maybe forty degrees.

Arthur frowned at him then asked, “How do you want to play this? Do you intend to mount your wings?”

“Only if I have to. When I battle with my brothers, we keep things about nine feet apart and try to maintain a back-to-back posture. That will keep these bastards from getting behind either of us. So how many have you fought at once? And tell me the goddam truth. I need to know what I can expect out of you.”

“Not many,” he said. “Five, I think.”

Thorne about dropped his sword. “You battled five, all at one time, by yourself, and lived to tell?”

Arthur raised a brow. “Like that’s hard?”

Thorne chuckled. The kid knew how to front.

Arthur crouched slightly and inclined his head slightly to the northwest, up the valley and toward the wall of trees. “There.”

Thorne glanced in the direction of Arthur’s gaze and the first three pretty-boys emerged.

Arthur offered a raspberry sound, which brought them turning as a group in Thorne’s direction.

“You always taunt death vampires?”

Arthur just smiled that smile again. Damn, he looked just like Jean-Pierre.

Thorne glanced down the valley then inclined his head. “We’ve got a few more on the other side of that building.”

“Looks like we’re going to have to split up.”

“You think you can handle this?”

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “Blow me,” he said, turning on his heel. He started to move then blurred away from Thorne. Only Kerrick could move as fast as that. Shit, what the fuck was he looking at? He knew. He already knew. A future Warrior of the Blood.

By this time, the party from the north was almost on him. He’d been listening to their breathing and their whispers. When he turned, he raised his sword. It was game on.

These were big motherfuckers but fairly new in death vamp years. They still had leftover Hispanic attributes. Though the unification of features had already begun, as had the bulking-up of muscles, there was definitely a paling of all that fine brown skin.

He folded behind the group and took out the hamstrings of the bastard on the far left, cutting through the kidneys of the middle asshole and turning to meet the sword of the last pretty-boy high in the air. The sound was loud in the night air, a heavy clash of metal against metal. He half expected ascenders to come running from their homes. Instead lights went out one by one.

The villagers were well trained.

He spun and folded, then from behind took the last pretty-boy’s head straight off. The heavy thunk on the hard earth was a familiar sound.

He crouched and turned in a circle hunting for more death vamp sign. Nothing.

He moved at a dead run, adding a burst of preternatural speed, in Arthur’s direction. He could hear the fighting but the battle had shifted behind a cabin, near the stream.

He rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks. He would have joined the fray but there were two bodies on the ground and Arthur was fully engaged battling the remaining three death vamps.

The young man moved like lightning, just like Kerrick with a little of Jean-Pierre’s loose style thrown in. His sword skills were mesmerizing. He could use some practice with the warriors, but goddam he was good.

One of the death vamps fell. The bastard to the left moved in as if for the kill and Thorne almost folded to intercept but instead, Arthur disappeared then reappeared behind him, grabbed the pretty-boy’s long straight black hair, pulled his head back, and drove the short knife on the hilt into his neck then jerked.

The last death vamp didn’t seem discouraged at all.

He matched Arthur in height but outweighed him no doubt by eighty pounds of sheer bulk and muscle.

Thorne backed away to gain a better visual of the street. To the north he could see bodies on the ground, none of them moving. To the south, the village was quiet and dark. Yep, the population was well trained. Diallo’s doing? Shit, there was something to be learned here.

He extended his hearing beyond the grunts of the death vamp as Arthur put him through his paces. The ground sloped in the direction of the stream, but none of that seemed to matter to Arthur’s quick feet.

Once more, Thorne scanned the dark forest beyond, but nothing returned to him. His hearing would definitely have picked up on another death vamp.

Whatever this attack was, Arthur had the last death vamp engaged in battle.

After half a minute passed, Thorne frowned. Why the hell was it taking Arthur so long to finish this guy off? The bastard was licked, moving sluggishly, and sweating like crazy.

“Need help there?” he offered. Maybe Arthur was tired.

But that familiar off-the-side-of-the-mouth smile appeared. The pretty-boy’s sword scraped awkwardly all the way down Arthur’s blade.

Arthur backed up, whirled, and at the same time flipped Thorne off. Then he got back to business and kept on fighting. He engaged over and over, thrust and parry, fending off the habitual straight-on attacks with ease, with agility.

When the death vampire finally fell to his knees, sucking in every breath like he was drowning, Arthur raised his blade high.

Shit, a rookie mistake.

The death vamp shifted position, brought his sword in a swift arc in the direction of Arthur’s legs, and caught some skin as Arthur moved just a hair too late.

But at the same moment Arthur brought the sword down and took off the pretty-boy’s head.

He hopped around on one foot for a moment. “Shit” came from between compressed lips.

When he finally stopped the hopping and put his foot down flat, Thorne smiled. The wound was hardly anything, maybe four inches across, an inch deep, not even what the Warriors of the Blood called a skin burn.

Thorne told him to sit on the ground. Arthur plopped. Thorne didn’t have extensive healing abilities but he could take care of this one.

He squatted and put his hand over the wound. “You’ve got some goddamn beautiful moves.”

“That was a dumb-ass mistake,” Arthur said.

Thorne chuckled. “I’ve made the same one a couple of times a century, ever since I ascended. I’m lucky I still have both my legs. Once, I even got stuck through my gut. Now, that fucking hurt.”

Arthur chuckled. “We good?” He jerked his head in a northerly direction.

“Yep. Have you folks had death vamps in this village before? I’m just wondering what we’re supposed to be doing with the bodies. I’ve noticed you’ve got some kind of intricate mist going on.”

“You can see it?”

He kept his hands steady but just looked at Arthur. “Yep.”

Arthur’s half smile emerged. “I guess Madame Endelle’s second-in-command would have some power.”

“That’s what you’d think all right. How does that feel?”

“Good. A little achy.”

“You want me to kiss it, make it all better?”

But Arthur just laughed.

After a minute, with the wound nicely closed, Thorne sat back on the ground. He met Arthur’s gaze. “You’re Warrior of the Blood caliber. You know that, right? Militia Warriors can’t do what you can do.”

Arthur’s gaze grew fogged and he looked away. “Not interested, Warrior Thorne. I used to dream about it. I thought it might even be my calling, but…”

“But what?”

Arthur shifted and met his gaze. “If you had a son, would you want him doing what you do?”

Everything that the war had become pressed down on Thorne hard. “No one knows what to do,” he whispered.

Aw, fuck. He was not going to unload on a kid. He jumped to his feet and slid his warrior phone from the pocket of his kilt. He swiped.

“Jeannie here. How may I help?”

“It’s Thorne.”