“I don’t care,” Beatrice said. “You and Ben are phenomenally powerful.” She looked at Giovanni. “Let’s just get it out in the open, shall we? You’re far more powerful than we are. Even as young as Ben is. It’s obvious, okay? You don’t need us for this.”
Ben looked away. He was embarrassed to even think it, but he knew Beatrice was right. Some instinct had told him the same thing months ago, and he still battled the feral instinct to consider Giovanni a threat.
“Powerful amnis is not a substitute for experience, training, and age,” Tenzin said. “Obviously he’s more powerful than you, but Ben still has many years before he would match Giovanni in combat.”
Ben looked at his uncle, whose expression had shifted from worried to amused.
“Tenzin,” he said. “There isn’t going to be any combat.” Giovanni walked to Beatrice and put two hands on her shoulders. “And I think we should stay.”
Beatrice’s jaw clenched. “Why?”
“Because Ben and Tenzin need us.” He kissed her forehead. “And because Sadia is fine. She was only irritated that she didn’t get her pizza. Didn’t you hear her? She wasn’t scared at all, and if Dema told her they were hiding from bad guys, she’d probably be excited.”
Beatrice put her hands over his. “Gio, they followed her. They know who she is.”
“They have always known who she is, tesoro. From the minute we set foot here, they have tracked us. But as Dema said earlier, now we know who they are. We are more prepared now, and Zain and Doug have agreed that one or both of them will accompany Sadia any time she leaves the house. If anything, this was a warning.”
“Or a blunder,” Tenzin said. “I suspect Arosh will not be happy with his humans.”
Beatrice narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Revealing themselves reveals him,” Tenzin said. “He’s searching with Saba, but he’s following us.” Tenzin smiled. “This is more good news.”
Ben said, “You don’t think he knows where it is?”
“They went north, but they are keeping an eye on us here,” Tenzin said. “I don’t think they have a clue. I suspect we are far ahead of them.”
Giovanni led Beatrice to the edge of the fountain and sat, pulling her next to him. He put his arm around her and hugged her closely. “Tell us about where you went tonight.”
“It was the closest site that Liya pinpointed,” Ben said. “But not the most promising. We are going to the second site tomorrow night.”
“And what do you think is there?” Beatrice asked.
“We’re hopeful,” Tenzin said. “This is one of the sites that is more remote. There is no church nearby. Nothing but a small village on the side of a mountain. And according to Liya’s report, local legends say there was once a palace at the top of the adama.”
“Adama?”
“Like a mesa,” Ben said. “Kind of. A flat-topped mountain. They were popular places to put castles, treasuries, storehouses.”
“Prisons,” Tenzin muttered.
They all looked at her.
“What?” she said. “There were a lot of royal princes in this country. They couldn’t all become the king.”
25
They spent the last minutes before sunrise reassuring Beatrice and Giovanni that they knew what they were doing, wouldn’t put the family in danger, and had everything under control before they retired to their light-safe day chamber at dawn. Ben barely had time to take a shower before the sun hit the horizon and he drifted closer and closer to oblivion.
He heard Tenzin showering as he floated in the liminal space between waking and sleep. To his ears, the shower sounded like rain, and he flashed back to the night she had flown through a storm, carrying his body with a sword run through his midsection.
“I wish I could kiss you one more time. I really wanted one more dance.”
“Shhhhh.”
He remembered the sensation of pain in his midsection and the hot tears that wet his face as the storm raged around him.
“I didn’t want to die yet.”
“I know. You won’t.”
He didn’t want to die, but he could only imagine eternity if she was in it. In the moments before he slept, he knew there was more. She’d told him about the sleep to distract him. There was something more stopping her from being his mate.
There was always something more.
Tenzin finished her shower and wrapped a towel around her body before she walked through the bedroom, but Ben was nearly out. He could only watch her, his lips moving silently as she floated around the room.
There is something more.
We are something more.
But all he saw was black.
Fire everywhere, scorching his body, blackening his skin. He desperately looked at his surroundings.
Red rock everywhere, a long channel of carved stone dug into the earth. Moonlight reflecting on microscopic particles in the volcanic rock, the walls around him glittering like stars.
The heat came first, a dry suffocating heat like the desert night in the middle of August. The wind came second, sucking his breath as it concentrated around a shadowed form in the distance.
The fire came last.
It swept down the channel of rock, licked along the stone floor, and tumbled over him, seeking to devour.
“Benjamin!”
He woke with a hand at his throat, sitting straight up in bed and gasping for air. Iron-hard fingers dug into the sides of his neck.
“Ben!” Tenzin pulled his hand away. “You’re choking yourself.”
He gasped. “Fire.”
She let out a breath. “You were dreaming about Arosh again.”
Yes. Yes, he was. Even her reassurances the night before hadn’t changed his nightmares. “How can we beat him?”
She didn’t say anything at first. Tenzin rose and went to the bathroom, returning with a washcloth she put against his throat. “The surest way to win a war,” she said quietly, “is to avoid one.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I mean we have to forget about Arosh. The bone scroll is in Saba’s territory. All we have to do is convince Saba that the scroll is better in our possession than in Arosh’s. If we do that, then we’re in the clear. The Fire King won’t be able to touch us.”
“He’s been her companion and lover for how many thousand years and you think she’ll go for that?”
Tenzin pursed her lips. “Was Saba Arosh’s lover? Yes. His companion? Also yes.” She took the washcloth from his neck. “Also his rival. Also his enemy. Don’t be too quick to classify what they are, Ben. It’s very hard to explain it in human terms.”
“I get that, but…” He still had a hard time believing the world’s oldest living vampire was going to choose a known thief and assassin along with her newly sired partner as guardians of an ancient object of power and immortal ambition.
“I know.” She sat back on the bed. “That’s why we need Giovanni and Beatrice to stay.”
“They make us look less like thieves?”