“Is that what you think I’m doing? Sitting and waiting for my ene-mies to attack?” he demanded, angry and letting it show. Did she think he’d become Lord of Spain by sitting behind high walls and doing nothing? That he’d never fought a real battle, with blood flying while vampires screamed as decades—sometimes centuries—worth of lives ended in an instant?
She stopped walking and stared at him. “No, in fact I’m pretty God damned sure that’s not what you’ve been doing. Which, I assume, is why we’re out here in the woods in the middle of the fucking night, with barely a sliver of moon to see by. Not that it makes much difference in the fucking forest!”
One half of his mouth quirked into a smile. He didn’t remember her cursing quite this much before. “Can you find the place where the trail terminated?”
“What?”
“The trail. You said you followed the enemy’s retreat. Can you show me where it ended?”
She looked around slowly, then down at the ground. “It’s a lot darker than it was. One tree looks a lot like another. But . . . ” She scanned the surrounding forest again. “Yeah, I think so. And if this is some kind of test, just so you can show me up by walking right to it, tell me now and don’t waste my time.”
He could find it without her. But he was rather enjoying their walk. “I’ll know when we get closer,” he said ambiguously. It was the truth. Just not all of it.
She studied him a moment, then pulled out a small flashlight and turned it on.
“Continue to aim that downward.”
“I know the drill.” They walked a few more steps, when she said, “You’re paying for the people coming in tomorrow.”
“Am I?”
“I have a budget for the daylight guard. I’m using it.”
He didn’t really care what they cost. He was more interested in who they were, and what they meant to her. But he wasn’t going to admit that. “Tell me, Laylita,” he said, using the nickname he hadn’t spoken in all the years she’d been gone, “what will you give me if I let these people of yours come to my Fortalesa?”
“They’re not coming for a fucking sleepover,” she gritted out. “They’re professional and highly skilled, the best in the world at what they do. And they’re coming here to help pull your ass out of the fire. My father’s people are damn good, and they have courage and heart. But one of my fighters is worth ten of them. It’s not an insult, nor a criticism. It’s simple reality. My guys have fought and survived some of the meanest, most dangerous conflicts in the world, frequently while hired by assholes they didn’t particularly like or respect. So you don’t need to worry about that. You need them. So suck it up, my lord.”
His smile widened. He so loved swatting at her temper. “There are people, and places, I’d much rather suck,” he crooned.
She stopped to stare at him, nostrils flaring and eyes widening in outrage, but she forced it back and smiled sweetly. “I’m sure there is no shortage of volunteers for that activity. I, however, have a job to do.”
He laughed, really laughed, for the first time in weeks. “I have missed you, cariño.”
She glared. “Well I haven’t missed you, and I’m not your fucking cariño.”
“Not yet,” he replied. He always won—always got what and whom he wanted. And he definitely wanted her.
She eyed him steadily. “Are we going to continue or what?”
Ah. His Layla had definitely matured while she’d been gone. She still had the fire that had drawn him back then, but she’d learned to bank it to a simmer until it would be most effective. “No need. Wait here a moment.”
She held out her hands in a “What the fuck?” gesture and shook her head in disgust, but watched silently as he continued in the general direction they’d been heading. He took several more steps, needing to distance himself from the waves of emotion she was throwing off. He’d learned enough from her father about her career—both formal military and later freelancing—to know she was as good as she claimed her associates were, the ones coming in tomorrow and the others, too. The fact that she was boiling over with emotion had little to do with her typical behavior on the job and more to do with him, and her conflicted love/hate feelings toward him.
“Layla,” he said softly.
He’d moved far enough away that she had to search for just a moment. He knew the moment she spotted the dark silver gleam of his eyes, as her own went wide with a soft gasp.
“Come here, please.”
She did, moving silently as she followed the path he’d taken. She flicked her flashlight on again, once she reached his side, slowly panning the narrow beam around the area. First the trees, then the spaces between them, and finally the ground. “This is it,” she said softly. “See how the trail just . . . ends?”
She looked up at him, but he wasn’t looking at her, or anything else. Not in this world. He held out his hands as if feeling an invisible wall.
“Did you find something?”
“Magic,” he murmured, lifting his head slightly and inhaling, as if it was a scent in the air. “You want to know how they’re vanishing so completely,” he continued, barely loud enough to be heard. “Our enemy is a sorcerer, and he’s using magic to whisk his fighters away.”
“Excuse me? A sorcerer?”
He heard the skepticism in her voice and gave her a surprised look. “You put faith in your Kerry and her hunches, and yet you doubt the existence of sorcerers and their magic?”
“Well, yeah? I mean, Kerry’s hunches are one thing, and I’ve seen you do some pretty cool tricks, but—”
“I don’t do tricks, Layla. I am a vampire lord, which means I have considerable power that neither you nor your science can explain. As for what sorcerers are capable of, what is that, if not what you would call magic?”
She bit the inside of her cheek for a moment, then admitted, “I don’t know. I want to say it’s impossible, but clearly it’s not. I guess I never really thought of it much at all.”
“No sorcerers in your armies, or that of your enemy?”
“Not that I know of.”
“The key word being, ‘know.’ I imagine your leaders prefer to keep that sort of thing secret from the general public. And it would seem, from its soldiers, as well.”