“For what?”
“For taking my human life from me. For forcing Tenzin to give me to her father. For playing your game with our lives.”
Saba’s chin rose. “No. Regrets are useless, and I don’t waste my time on them.”
“You think you’re smarter than everyone, don’t you?”
“Smarter? That is a different matter entirely. But wiser?” She smiled. “Who in our world could be wiser than me? What child can claim to be wiser than his mother?”
Ben held out the scroll, which suddenly seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. “So what keeps me from destroying it right now, Mother?” Anger began to burn in his chest. “What is stopping me from crushing it in my hands?”
37
Tenzin emerged from the floor of the bakery, a dusty mess of a woman with red stone dust all over her clothes, her hair a tangle, pulling an earth vampire through a hole in the floor no bigger than a large loaf of round bread the humans were pulling from the oven.
She looked around the bakery, alive in the predawn hours. The priests who had been baking were frozen and staring at her and Daniel. “Uh… Bêta Merkorios?”
Their eyes went wider.
“Have you picked up any Amharic?” Tenzin murmured.
“Nothing more than yes, no, and thank you.” Daniel looked down at his bare feet. “We look a bit of a mess, don’t we?”
“I imagine so.” She nudged the stone back into the hole with a loud thunk. Then she walked toward the open doorway, feeling Daniel following her.
“Bêta Merkorios?” one of the humans asked.
Tenzin spun around. “Yes. Awo. Bêta Merkorios.” She nodded hard.
The old man dressed in white walked them silently out the door and down the hill, pointing toward the massive metal cover that sheltered Bêta Amanuel in the distance.
“Thank you.” She took his hand and had to resist the urge to kiss it. “Thank you.”
Daniel shook the man’s hand as well and thanked him in Amharic. Tenzin walked down the hill, itching to take to the sky but knowing the humans were watching.
“The cavern Saba pulled Ben into,” Daniel said. “I’m sure it’s part of the complex under Merkorios. There was a scent that was familiar and there was more water. It smelled damp.”
“We have to get to Ben and make sure he’s safe,” Tenzin said. “And we also need to make sure he secures the bone scroll. We have leverage, and he better not reveal it until the right time.” She picked up speed, floating just over the ground to avoid the clumsy earth. “Daniel, are they still—”
“We’re far enough away,” he said. “I really don’t think they can see. The moon isn’t very— Oh my God!”
She’d already grabbed him by the back of his collar and yanked him into the air, speeding over flowing hills and round houses to land in front of the church they’d explored the previous night.
Someone had put a brand-new lock on the old door, but Tenzin didn’t have time for subtlety. She yanked the padlock off the door, twisting the metal in her fingers, the fire of Ben’s blood burning through her veins.
Her mate wasn’t panicking. Now that her head wasn’t swimming from being underground, she could feel him. He was angry. Worried.
Not frightened.
Should he be?
It was a question she had no way of answering until she found him and looked into his eyes. Ben’s bravado could drive her absolutely out of her mind. Male egos were infuriating. She felt him though. His blood hummed with contented energy in her veins, happy that Tenzin had finally recognized it.
The humans who cared for the church had replaced the carpet, but Daniel tore it up again, which Tenzin was grateful for. She had no patience for—
“Small daughter of Zhang!”
“Fuck!” Tenzin bared her fangs and turned to snarl at the voice of the fire vampire who was determined to make her kill him.
“Go deal with him.” Daniel was already moving the stone back from the floor. “I’ll try to find Ben.”
She grabbed his arm just before he walked down the stairs. “Daniel, if he returns safely to me, I will owe you a favor.”
It was no small thing among their kind, and Daniel knew it. “He’s my friend, Tenzin.”
“He’s my mate.” She leaned closer when Daniel’s mouth fell open. “Do you understand me?”
The vampire nodded silently and slipped into the stone passageway.
As soon as he was gone, Tenzin walked out of the church, dirt and stone dust covering every inch of her, her hair sticking up at odd angles from being tugged and pressed in the ventilation shaft.
Arosh stood across a wide gulf carved into the rock that surrounded the church of Merkorios. Between them, a two-story drop threatened to make life very painful for anyone who happened to fall into it at night.
“Tenzin.”
She tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear. “Arosh.”
He still looked immaculate. His hair was braided and shining. His skin had a healthy glow gained from the rich oils he used on his body, and his leather leggings and billowing white shirt reminded Tenzin of a pirate in a movie. She couldn’t stop a smile from touching the corner of her lips.
“Do I amuse you?”
“You amuse many women,” Tenzin said. “But not me.” She gave him a small salute. “I consider you a valuable competitor, however.” She shook her finger at him. “Your women had very high standards, and I think you should consider that a compliment.”
He narrowed his eyes. Arosh hadn’t known for sure quite how Tenzin had “enjoyed” staying in his harem, but he might have been starting to get an idea.
“The boy—”
“Is a man now, Arosh.” Tenzin scanned the surrounding area, but she found only one other vampire mind hovering nearby. It wasn’t Ziri—nowhere near powerful enough. Inaya maybe? “You do know Ben is a grown man, don’t you?”
“Do you?”
She smirked. “Oh yes.”
“Ah.” He shrugged. “I wish you happiness, but despite my new peace with your father, I must take the bone scroll from you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That will not be happening. Ben is the one who found it. He is its caretaker now.”
“But it is a treasure from Saba’s territory.” Arosh paced back and forth along the edge of the rock. “He has no right to it.”
“He does if he bargains for it,” Tenzin said. “You know your queen is amenable to a fair trade. Especially if that trade nets her a token from her most beloved daughter.”
“Desta?” Arosh’s face went blank. “You have something that belonged to Desta?”
“What else could compel her?”
Tenzin saw the moment Arosh realized he might lose.
His upper lip curled back and he snarled. Then he lifted his arms and sent a blast of pure fire directly across the trench, heading straight toward Tenzin’s face.
38
“You won’t damage the scroll,” Saba said. “You are Giovanni Vecchio’s son.”