marry you, Natalie. I want you to have children like you want. Our children.” The vision of his father in the courtyard came back to him. “I will protect them. I can teach them how to fight.”
“You could teach them a lot of things,” she said, her voice hoarse. He looked down to see tears in her eyes. “How to fight. How to play. How to break my cell phone…”
“Yes.” He smiled. “All of those things. I believe I would be a good father.”
“I think you’d be a great father. It wouldn’t bother you? That you can’t—”
“There are humans who cannot father children, aren’t there?” He shrugged. “We will do whatever they do. It won’t make them any less mine.” He looked down. “If that is what you want.”
“Maybe not right away, but…” She smiled. “That’s definitely what I want.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Okay.” Natalie heaved a sigh and settled close to him again. “After we kill all the bad guys.”
“After I kill all the bad guys, and you keep your head down.”
“That’s what I meant.”
Ivan’s men didn’t come that night. They didn’t come the next night, either. By the third night, everyone was getting restless. Carwyn had dug more caves off of Tulio’s original tunnel just so they could avoid each other. Brigid and Baojia were both thirsty; Baojia only took a little blood from Natalie, not wanting her weak.tinigi It had caused yet another argument. Which he lost, so he drank again.
When he woke on the fourth night, it was with a distinct sense of foreboding. He left Natalie in her sleeping bag and went outside. Tenzin was crouched at the mouth of the cave, eyeing the horizon.
“They’re coming tonight,” she said.
“Are you sure? The priest hasn’t called.”
She cocked her head to the side, like a bird examining an insect. “Fairly sure.”
He lowered his voice. “Tenzin… If Natalie is injured in this fight, I do not want to lose her.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You ask this of me? Do you trust me so much, Dragon?”
“No.”
She grinned, her curving fangs glinting in the moonlight. “Good. You shouldn’t. So why ask me?”
“I would bargain with you, and your blood is powerful.”
“So is the priest’s.”
Baojia stopped as Ben crawled out of the cave, grumbling about the heat and muttering something about clean water. He walked away from them, no doubt looking for somewhere to relieve himself, and Baojia saw Tenzin watching him with an amused smile.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I think you would understand my wish to not lose a human so valuable to me.”
Tenzin’s eyes cut toward him, narrowing.
“Perhaps,” Baojia said, leaning closer, “you would do the same, even if it was not that human’s wish.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” She stood, brushing off the dust. “I’m going to look around and see what’s coming.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I would say… perhaps.” Tenzin took to the air, disappearing into the black night.
Baojia sighed and stretched, enjoying the feel of his muscles working. He took off his shirt, folding it neatly and laying it o
n a rock before he centered himself and faced the darkening western sky.
Perhaps.
He closed his eyes and swept a leg out, crossing his arms, then pulling them away from his body before he brought them back to center and flexed his shoulders.
Perhaps.
Baojia practiced his forms as the moon rose and the others gave him the gift of their silence. They all knew what the plan was; they simply needed the enemy to arrive.
Perhaps?
He breathed deeply, sensing a welcome—but unexpected—gift on the breeze. His amnis jumped when he felt it. It couldn’t be… His eyes flew open, searching the sky just as Tenzin landed.
“There is good news and bad news, as they say,” she said, walking toward him.
“Bad news?”
“Four SUVs are heading this way, following the delivery truck that will be here within a few minutes.”
Four. With three or four immortals in each SUV, that would mean anywhere between twelve and sixteen opponents. And four of them. Normally, he could handle that many on his own, but with the Elixir involved, the odds were unknown.
“And the good news?”
She grinned wide. “There’s a storm coming.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
One minute, she was sitting quietly, watching him practice his martial arts forms itinigmbp:pagen that steady, meditative rhythm, the next, everything happened at once. Baojia spun around and picked her up in one swoop, carrying her to the tunnel so fast the world around her blurred. He was speaking to Tenzin in rapid Chinese as they raced toward Tulio’s cavern.
“Stop!” she finally yelled. “English, please! I don’t know