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Her scent rose to drift into his nose and command his senses, a delicate bouquet of pastries and woman combined, a heady coht

His breath caught and held He felt as he had from the first, that he could lose his soul in the eyes of this wohtmare that would not end The breh-hedden had done this to theether when neither of the to baby Helena’s christening, Jean-Pierre And that’s that I will not discuss it further"

He could not move her Whatever her slavery had been, her recovery had been swift Froed a va all the rerave

He applauded her determination but the sheer stubbornness that had arisen, the willfulness, was a thorn in his side, night and day He would not call her reckless, but certainly fearless His job would have been so much easier if she had been a wallflower that wilted Instead she forged ahead, ignored his opinions, and was like an Amazon to the problems in front of her

He served as her Guardian of Ascension and had frorateful for and hated the assignment Grateful because he could not have tolerated any other warrior being close to her Yet if he was to have a chance to not feel so very bound to her, only distance would answer--and distance he could not get

Worse, she had e powers, which meant that the enemy would soon discover her worth, and would want her very dead For that reason, he had tried to persuade her not to attend the christening, which he had learned just a few hours ago, and much to his horror, was to be conducted in the open air

Merde

Seriffe coain "We have another situation, people"

"Oh, no," Fiona whispered

Without thinking, heshe allowed, and he was not surprised when she leaned against him for support As much as neither wished to be close, a friendship had developed, and he knew that to soree she relied on him

Once more, he put his handThis close, his arousal was only a thought away But in the past fivethe presence of his wo, as the A hard-on

Seriffe had a ree central o"

Greaves carowl More than any other creature on the face of the earth, he wanted this vampire dead, set on fire, burned to ashes, then cast over at least five different bodies of water

"My fellow ascenders," Greaves began, "I have learned this veryefforts to better regulate a world that has fallen into massive decay under Madame Endelle’s unfortunate leadership, has uncovered the existence of several blood slave facilities We are even now in the process of searching these facilities out and ending the reprehensible activity of procuring dying blood fro a reward for anyone who can locate the creator and director of these facilities, an ascender by the name of Rith Do’onho has built over the past ten decades an entire black market for this truly heinous commodity"

A picture appeared of Rith, and Jean-Pierre felt Fiona stiffen He could only iht of the vampire affected her

Greaves continued, "The unfortunate circu blood is a proble Order, works on relentlessly day and night

"I wish to set the record straight on one pertinent fact; o, I had a brief association with ascender Do’onwa, in which as a joint effort we attempted to create an antidote for the disease When I saw that such efforts would prove fruitless, I ended the project as well as my association with ascender Do’onwa

"So serious is the nature of this situation that I’ one million dollars to anyone who can provide information that leads to the capture of ascender Do’onwa"

He ended the press conference, refusing to take questions, and left the staging area with the flash of lightbulbs glittering off his shiny bald head

"Fucking brilliant," Fiona uy Bastard"

She was using one of his favorite words to describe Greaves

Fiona continued "But do you think the world is buying this?"