Titus gave me a slow clap. "This is exactly why you're the top Asset, Eve. You never lose your focus on the biggest threat at any given moment."
"Would you like to go hunting, brother?" Asa asked Enoch companionably. “Just like old times?”
Titus rubbed his hands together rapidly. "I can't wait to stick my stake into the hearts of a few vampires." He was looking at Asa when he said it, and I knew what he really meant. "Ready, Eve?"
"She is not going," Enoch proclaimed.
"The hell I'm not! I told you the last time, on your ship, that you can’t keep me in a cage.”
"Who will guard my home in my stead?" Asa asked, enjoying the spectacle of our argument.
I smiled at him sweetly. "Let Terah stay behind." Titus nudged me and gave me a look that said he more than approved of my suggestion.
“She won’t want to be left behind,” Enoch warned Asa.
“But brother, I’m sure you can find a way to persuade her to see the logic in it.” Enoch stiffened. Asa, on the other hand, winked at me before turning and walking away.
“I’ll be back in a few moments,” Enoch replied stiffly, excusing himself.
“What exactly did Asa mean by that?” Titus asked, watching my reaction. “Can Enoch control his siblings?”
“Not that I know of,” I answered. I couldn’t fathom why he would have the ability, or why they wouldn’t be able to resist his compulsion.
“He can control his sires…” Titus led.
“But his siblings are his equals. He didn’t sire them,” I argued.
“As far as we know.” Titus rolled his shoulders, shook his arms out, and stretched, limbering up for the hunt ahead. “We need to watch them closely.”
“You’re watching them close enough for the both of us.”
“And what about you?” he asked. “Are you watching them enough?”
“I know you don’t like Enoch.”
“I don’t like any of them,” he countered matter-of-factly. “And I sure as hell don’t trust them. But how well do you actually know Enoch? We’ve only known him a few weeks altogether, spread out over decades and centuries, and he’s been alive a lot longer than that. How do we know anything about him? I think we’ve seen enough to have learned that there’s a lot more we don’t know. Besides, it can’t hurt to be cautious.”
I turned away from him to think and stared at the rows of short hedges surrounded by tall ones, picturing a hooded man walking out from between the tallest, knife blade pointed toward my belly.
The sky darkened. Pale-gray tendrils of smoke curled toward the thinly streaked clouds, outlined in gold. The acrid scent stung my nose, even though I’d been outside in the fresh air long enough for the few burns on my hands and cheek to heal.
I let out a pent-up breath.
What Titus said made perfect sense. Any logical person who heard his argument would agree with him. The three Nephilim had been alive for thousands of years, and we had only been in their presence for a few weeks. Even those weeks were spread out over time. I saw distinct changes in Enoch between the first time I met him, to when I saw him on the seas, and I couldn't help but wonder how much he had changed since then. I'd only had a few minutes with him so far.
"You know I'm right." Titus wasn't bragging or trying to rub salt in the wound; he was trying to be the voice of reason because I couldn't be. Whenever I was around Enoch, I couldn't think clearly. My emotions ran wild, pouring over me like an angry tidal wave. Crushing. Unforgiving. Powerful.
Maru told me never to reveal my weakness to anyone, not even those I trusted, because those who were friends today, might be enemies tomorrow. The weakness of the enemy makes our strength. Titus still thought of our targets as enemies, and while I could see that Terah and Asa clearly were, I couldn't see Enoch ever being someone I could fight against.
I promised Victor no one would ever disarm me again and that his faith in me was well-placed. But here I was, in seventeen-seventy-seven, and Enoch had completely disarmed me with the force of who he was. Because I saw him for what he truly was and not the monster Victor made him out to be, I was glad to break the promise I once made.
“You need to watch yourself around Terah,” Titus interrupted my train of thought, both brows raised. He held onto my upper arms as if infusing the words into my brain.
“I know. I’ll watch my back, but I think you should watch yours, too. You’re her hunter. If she wants to get rid of anyone, it makes sense that it would be you first.”
He gritted his teeth but gave me a curt nod. We stood in silence until Enoch returned to the garden a few minutes later. "We need to split up. Eve and I can head toward my home place and track the scents of the vampires from there. We should be able to tell who sired them."
"Eve and I are not splitting up. If anything, you can go with Asa."
"Absolutely not," Enoch gritted. “I haven’t seen her in –”
"She and I stick together," Titus argued. "Period."
"Hello," I said, waving my hand to both of them. "I'm right here. Oh, and I'm going with Titus. We're teammates, and as much as I want to spend time with you catching up, now is not the time. Besides, I’ll hunt better without distractions, and your presence is a distraction to me, Enoch."
For a moment he looked angry, and then the meaning of my words struck him and he gave a sheepish grin. "I see. Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to distract a huntress from her prey."
Titus groaned, sliding his hands down his face, and turned to give us a moment of privacy. Enoch kissed me, hard and fast. For a moment, I did just as I’d imagined. I tangled my fingers into his shoulder-length curls, feeling their softness. I breathed in his scent and felt the muscles ripple under the vest and blue coat he wore.
“I promise we will spend plenty of time catching up, my huntress.”
With one last, lingering kiss, Enoch released me and the three of us began the walk to Enoch’s home. Asa caught up with us halfway there as we walked through rows of dried cornstalks.
“There is no foreign scent in my home,” he fumed. “That means that whomever set the fire was no stranger. They were an opportunist.” He glared at me.
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t set the fire that almost killed me, Asa.”
Asa turned the full weight of his glare to Titus.
“Both of us were outside, dude. Did you happen to ask your psycho sister where she was when it broke out?”
“She assures me she wasn’t involved.”
Titus snorted. “Right, right. Because she hasn’t acted strange or suspicious the entire time we’ve been here.”
Asa chuckled. “Do you ever tire of being so blunt?”
“Not really, no,” Titus answered honestly. “And Terah’s lying.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Her body language. She’s almost as bad a liar as Eve.”
I tried not to take offense, reminding myself that he was only being honest, even if it was aggravating. Titus was great at reading people, but I wasn’t completely sure Terah was the one who set the fire. Maybe it was the same person who’d tried to kill 1776.