“I see one perimeter guard,” Tenzin said. “And he only walks around once an hour.”
“This is going to be very easy,” Ben said. “Which makes me think there’s something we’re not seeing.”
“I’ve checked the roof for wildlife and I don’t see any.”
“Wildlife?” Ben glanced at her, then scanned the roof. “What would live on the roof?”
“I mean… if we were in Asia, sloths maybe.”
“Guard sloths?”
“I’m just saying they’re more effective than you might think.” She adjusted her position on the cedar branch. “I love the smell here.”
“So do I.” The rain falling in the grove of eucalyptus and cedar reminded him of nights in San Francisco. “When we’re done with this, what do you want to do?”
“Honestly?” She turned to him. “I need some time away from cities.” She nodded toward the twinkling lights of Addis in the distance. “New York. Addis. Los Angeles.”
“You need quiet.” Ben tried to imagine life without Tenzin, even for a short time. “I get that; I do.”
They’d spent two years apart, and it had been the longest two years of his life. They’d been back together less than a year, and he was still trying to figure out what he meant to her and what she was to him.
Was he her mate? He only knew vampire mating from Giovanni and Beatrice, who were also married in the Catholic Church. He knew Tenzin would never go for marriage, and he didn’t want to ask her.
But as her mate? She’d had a mate before, and he’d died. Was it fair to ask her for that again? Ben knew that Tenzin was possessive of him—that he was hers—but he was still trying to wrap human ideas of a relationship around her. He didn’t know how else to define what he felt for her.
He loved her. He wanted her to belong to him. In his human life that would mean marriage and commitment, but he didn’t know what that meant for a five-thousand-year-old vampire, and he didn’t know how to bring it up.
He felt his anger starting to rise.
Tenzin kept her eyes on the dark house. A few windows were glowing on the west side, and she watched them intently for movement.
It wasn’t fair. Ben had been human only a few short years ago, and he thought he was doing pretty damn well at adapting to immortality, but if Tenzin thought they could have a partnership—romantic or personal—where she just took off and disappeared for who-knows-how-long and he had to wait and see—
“You could come with me when I go.” She turned to him. “If you’d like. I’d like to show you the valley in Tibet where I go to rest.”
Ben blinked. “Oh.”
“You thought I wanted to go alone.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “I could feel you getting angry.”
He didn’t apologize for it. “You do that sometimes.”
“And if I need time alone, I will tell you.” She reached for his hand and pressed their palms together. “But I don’t need time away from you. I just need time away.”
His fingers squeezed hers once, then held them loosely as he and Tenzin watched the house. “I’d love to see Tibet.”
She smiled. “Good.”
18
Tenzin sipped her third cup of Ethiopian coffee that night.
Ben watched her with narrowed eyes. “Are you sure caffeine has no effect on immortal systems?”
They were sitting in a restaurant near a busy intersection. Fruit vendors hawked their wares on the street outside, trying to empty their carts as people sped home from work.
She looked at him and raised her empty cup. “What do you think this coffee is going to do? Keep me awake all day?”
Tenzin still hadn’t told Ben she’d been sleeping a little bit. It was one of the secrets she had a hard time admitting because sleeping made her feel vulnerable. It was also one of the reasons she refrained from taking Ben’s blood, especially when they were in Saba’s territory.
Ben would only think about taking her blood if she took his, and she resisted anything that might make her more vulnerable, especially here. Even the drifting sleep she experienced from the blood she’d already taken was more sleep than she’d had in thousands of years.
“Tenzin?” Ben snapped his fingers in front of her nose. “Come back.”
“I don’t remember when I stopped sleeping.” She met his eyes that saw too much. Perhaps she could bare this part of herself without becoming too vulnerable. “I think I stopped because bad things happened when I slept.”
Ben reached for her hand but said nothing.
“When I was young, I could not control it. You understand that.” She looked away and set down her empty cup. “But over time I was able to stay awake longer and longer. Eventually I didn’t sleep at all, so I learned to meditate to rest my mind.”
“And you still meditate.”
She nodded. “For hours.” That was still true. Most of her days were spent in meditation, the only way her mind could rest since her body did not.
“So that’s good.” He squeezed her hand. “Maybe in time—when you feel safe—your body will learn how to sleep again.”
Was that why? Tenzin blinked. She had not considered that Ben’s amnis—that his bond with her—had made her feel… safe.
She leaned toward him and touched his jaw, feeling the strong bone beneath the skin. Her fingers trailed down to the delicate skin covering his neck. “You are beautiful and strong, my Benjamin. But if I never sleep—”
“I’ll try not to take it personally.” He leaned over and brushed a kiss against her mouth. “I know.”
“I am a very old woman, after all.” There was a human saying about old dogs and new tricks, but it was actually a very bad saying because old dogs were just as intelligent as puppies and could respond to human training with the proper motivation.
So perhaps… her body could learn to respond to new instincts as well.
Ben smiled and brushed a thumb along Tenzin’s cheek. “Chloe’s friend is coming.”
“I see.” Tenzin sat up and looked around the restaurant where they had eaten a small meal.
Well, as small a meal as was possible to get in Ethiopia, which seemed to specialize in filling entire tables with colorful dishes. It was delightful to have so much variety, but she hoped someone was eating the food left over.
The restaurant was a popular one with open-air seating, short tables and chairs, and loud traditional music. The crowd was mostly local, but a large tour group in matching blue shirts filled one corner, and a few other foreigners—faranji as the locals called them—filled other tables, sometimes with Ethiopian companions and sometimes on their own.
“I have not seen any other East Asian women in this country,” Tenzin said. “All the Chinese businesspeople are male.”
“I noticed that.” Ben waved at a woman walking down the stairs into the dining room. “I’ve seen a few Indian women though.”
“Yes. I did notice that. This is Chloe’s friend?” Tenzin found herself feeling possessive and attracted at the same time. The woman walking toward them was absolutely beautiful. Tenzin scooted slightly closer to Ben as the human approached.