was still the light to her darkness; the only one she’d found in thousands of years. Was she selfish for wanting to keep it?
Yes.
Oh well.
He wanted her to stop following him? Fine. That was an easy one. She’d stop following him. She’d only done it because she was worried that he’d become careless about his own safety.
Now that he’d come home—his true home, not Penglai—and he’d seen his baby sister, seen his family, she felt more confident that he would take care of the life she’d paid for.
Because she had paid for it, though it was a price she never wanted him to know. Tenzin wanted nothing between them. No debts and no anger. Now that Ben was immortal, he could finally have the life he was meant to.
And when he came to her, it would be as her equal.
9
Bucharest, Romania
One week later
Ben woke to the unfamiliar. He smelled cinnamon and vanilla. Flour. Road tar. Someone was baking and it was raining outside.
He rose from the borrowed bed in Gavin’s safe house, which lay in a luxurious basement below his whiskey bar. The whiskey bar was a newer establishment, trying to capitalize on the rich and growing international crowd in Romania’s capital.
It reminded Ben of Gavin’s bar in Houston. The lighting was low, the menu was extensive, and the vampire-to-human ratio was fairly even.
Romania and Ukraine fell in the slightly grey area of vampire territory between Saba’s domain in the Mediterranean and the influence of Oleg in Russia with Romania being slightly more Saba’s and Ukraine being slightly more Oleg’s. Both earth vampires watched over the countries, but not closely, leaving local influencers with more power and less oversight. In situations like that, businessmen like Gavin and Radu became de facto authorities, offering safety to immortals who frequented their businesses.
Ben stretched and spent a few minutes practicing the tai chi forms Beatrice had reminded him were so important for focus. He closed his eyes and centered himself as he took stock of his immortal body.
Hunger, sated. He’d fed the night before from one of the paid donors in Gavin’s bar as well as topping off right before dawn with a large glass of blood-wine.
Mind, focused. He was in Romania to meet Radu. He had a goal and three avenues to investigate that they’d identified before they left Los Angeles.
Amnis… uncertain. He kept waking in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar scents and energy around him. While human Ben was a longtime friend of Gavin’s, vampire Ben’s amnis was still becoming accustomed to the other immortal’s energy, which Ben could only describe as… slippery.
Gavin was impossible to pin down, and Ben’s instincts couldn’t decide if he was a friend or a foe yet. Logically, Ben knew that was probably part of what made Gavin so successful in his business. He could set more powerful vampires at ease… but only so much. There was something fundamentally uncertain about Gavin’s amnis.
Yep. Slippery.
Chloe, thank God, was a steadying factor. When the three of them were together, Ben could be at ease.
He punched in the security code with the stylus next to the PIN pad, and the doors unsealed. He walked out to the small living area outside his secure day chamber. Since the bar and the safe house were new, they had the most recent Nocht-compatible technology installed.
Ben woke his tablet. “Good evening, Cara.”
“Good evening, Ben Vecchio. Your voice ID has registered with this device. You have enabled two-factor authentication. Please speak or enter your ID code now.”
Ben spoke his code in an obscure Mongolian dialect Zhang was teaching him.
“Authentication recognized. How can I help you tonight?”
“Do I have any new messages from today?”
“You have… ten new messages.”
“Please display.” He saw a tray with a thermos and several pastries on the coffee table. Nice. That must have been the vanilla and cinnamon he’d been smelling. He walked over and unscrewed the top of the thermos to find dark, steaming coffee.
“Good.” He’d been half expecting blood, and that just didn’t go well with cinnamon cake. He sniffed the coffee. Sweet. More like Turkish coffee than the American variety. He poured a bit into the small mug next to the cake and added cream from the tiny pitcher.
Okay, damn. That was delicious. He could get addicted to Romanian coffee if they stayed here long.
Someone tapped on the door.
“Cara, blank screen.” Ben faced the door, coffee in hand. He could already smell Chloe. “Come in, Chloe.”
She poked her head in. “Still really weird that you always know when it’s