Chapter Twelve

Tenzin was meditating when she heard Brigid return from her lessons with Oleg. The young fire vampire was disciplined and hardworking, but she was still disconnected from her element in a way that told Tenzin that even after a decade of being immortal, Brigid still thought more like a human than a vampire.

Tenzin had just returned from ferrying the wounded human Walter to the clinic Oleg ran, and she had very serious doubts the man would survive, but she wasn't dismissing anyone who'd managed to drag himself back to land through a freezing ocean with sharks and orcas, then last for nearly two weeks before someone found him, all while taking shelter in the ruins of a home that housed the ashes of his family.

"I need you to be honest with me."

She looked to the right and saw Brigid standing in the doorway of the room she'd been assigned in Oleg's compound. "Why?"

"Because you lie."

Tenzin nodded. "It's good you accept that. Your mate usually gets deeply offended."

"By lying? Can't imagine why."

"Neither can I. It's not as if we don't lie by our very natures." Tenzin leaned back, propping herself up on the low bed. "What do you want?"

Brigid was still wrapping her brain around something. "What do ya mean that we lie by our very natures? Vampires don't lie any more or less than humans do."

"You heard Walter earlier."

"Walter said a lot." Brigid leaned against the doorjamb.

"It's hard to tell us apart," Tenzin said. "Humans and vampires."

"Yeah."

She almost smiled. "Yet the wolf will never be mistaken for the deer. What other predator mimics its prey so completely?"

"Humans."

Tenzin nodded. "Fair point. The only thing that preys on humans more than vampires is other humans."

"I don't have a single iota of proof, but I'd guess more vampires are killed by other vampires than anything else." Brigid crossed her arms over her chest. "We're our own worst predators."

"And I suspect you're correct." Tenzin stared at the wall. "I'm bored. When are we hunting Zasha?"

"We need to find a boat," Brigid said.

"What boat?"

"Walter said they came in on a Zodiac, which means they're on a larger vessel between these raids."

Tenzin nodded. "That is a good insight. What do we need to do to find a boat?"

"It may require coordination with Katya's people. I'm tryin' to convince Oleg that she's not working with Zasha in all this. He's thinking deep thoughts and talking things over with Mika."

How boring.

Tenzin sighed.

"I'm sorry we can't satiate your bloodlust more quickly," Brigid said. "But it's a big ocean."

"I suppose it is." Tenzin had found a boat once, anchored in the middle of a storm in the Philippines, carrying the vampire who had ended Ben's human life. She was probably dead now, but Tenzin had no way of knowing.

"What do you want me to tell the truth about?" Tenzin asked.

She wouldn't get Brigid to leave until she'd vomited up the information the fire vampire was seeking, and Tenzin was considering the idea of calling Ben with her tablet, which she had turned off so Gavin couldn't track her.

She missed her mate. Life was much more boring without Ben.

"What did you do to Zasha?"

Ah, so that was the question.

"I took something valuable from them."

"You stole something?"

"In a manner of speaking." Tenzin closed her eyes again, picturing the slant of the snow falling in the moonlight. There was a vivid memory that lingered, even after millennia, a type of flowering tree that grew along the riverbanks when she was human. When the wind blew, the flowers fell and swirled in the air like snow.

That's what had popped into Tenzin's head the night she'd killed Zasha's mate. The last memory of her human life that had been happy, when her daughter laughed in a basket on the riverbank, waving chubby fingers at the flower petals as they fell around her.

"I had a daughter once." Tenzin stared at the blank wall across from the bed, the flat white paint dirtied with fingerprints and smears.

"I didn't know that." Brigid's voice was soft and sorrowful.

Ugh.

She didn't want the woman's pity.

Tenzin looked at her. "Human life is brief and harsh and painful. And beautiful for those reasons. Mine was taken from me very early, and the first centuries of my immortal life were terrifying and horrible and no one should know about them. I was the single immortal female in the middle of a male vampire horde. Do you understand why it was terrible?"

A mask fell over Brigid's face. "Yes."

"Exactly. That horde was led by a vampire my own sire created, and his name was Temur."

Temur, Temur, Temur, whom the girl in her had loved in a sad, sick way even as the vengeful hunter drove the knife into his back. He had broken her too many times.

They feared your madness, and I trusted you!

He shouldn't have trusted her. Not ever.

Tenzin looked at Brigid. "When I was strong enough, I killed Temur, and then I killed every one of Zhang's other children—they were all sons—and I hunted down any vampire they had sired and I killed those too."

Brigid sat on the narrow bed across from Tenzin. "Including Zasha's mate."

"Yes. It took me over a thousand years, but I killed them all. Except for that one. I didn't know he existed until I heard stories. I smelled him." She wrinkled her nose at the memory. "Zasha's mate was the last of Temur's blood, and he was living quietly in…" She frowned. "Siberia, I think. He had hidden himself very well because he knew what would happen if I found him."

Brigid kept her voice low. "If he was living quietly, why would you kill him? Had he been in Temur's horde?"

"No." She turned her eyes back to the wall. "I doubt he'd even been born when I killed Temur."

"Then why kill him?"

"Because I made a promise." Tenzin frowned and looked at the young one. "Who are you to question me? When I was born, your human ancestors were living in the mud."

Brigid lifted her chin. "I'm allowed to judge you."

"Why?"

She didn't have an answer, because of course she didn't.

Whatever small indignities the human Brigid had endured, they were nothing to what the girl Tenzin had survived. "I killed those who needed to be killed. My mercy, Brigid Connor, is the reason that Walter's family is dead."

Brigid blinked. "What?"

"Zasha's mate pleaded with me to spare her. Zasha was living as a woman then. Their mate begged me to leave Zasha alone. He begged me to spare them, and I was stupid enough to have mercy. ‘I will only kill her if she tries to kill me.' That's what I promised him. I vowed it on my children's blood." Tenzin smiled a little bit. "And ever since then, Zasha has never tried to kill me."

Brigid frowned. "New Orleans. You and Zasha were attacking each other and?—"

"Please." The girl didn't know what an attack really was. "That was Zasha playing. With you as well. I don't think they ever really wanted to hurt you. In an odd way, I suspect they want to be your friend."

"That's fuckin' disturbin'," Brigid muttered.

"Yes, Zasha is very disturbed," Tenzin whispered.

She saw a flicker in the corner of the room and a tiny wind vampire crouched in the corner, pointing and laughing at her, a hand clapped over her mouth to hide the fangs.

Nearly as disturbed as you are.

"So Zasha wants to kill me but knows that they can't do it directly," Tenzin asked. "If they do?—"

"Then you can kill them and not break your vow." Brigid caught on immediately. "So why draw me in?"

"They probably heard about you from Oleg or some of Oleg's clan. There aren't really that many fire vampires in our world. In my life, I would estimate there are only ever about a hundred active fire vampires at any given time." Tenzin looked at Brigid. "You are one. Oleg is another. Giovanni. Two fire elders in Penglai."

"And Zasha."

"Yes. You've tripped along the edges of vampire life in Europe for a while now. You have friends in high places, and you know me. Zasha probably heard of you and was intrigued. And then…"

"Then?"

Tenzin raised her eyebrows. "You killed their child."

"Ivan."

Brigid and Carwyn had helped in the hunt for Zasha's last progeny when the earth vampire was running hunts in Northern California.

"Yes. Ivan. I don't know that Zasha has any parental instincts that we would recognize, but they did care for Ivan if for no other reason than as Zasha's offspring, Ivan carried a hint of their mate's blood. Temur's blood."

"Ivan was a horrible human being."

"Do you think Zasha cares about that? He was their son. Technically their grandson, but I doubt Zasha made note of the difference. Ivan was theirs."

Brigid looked as if her brain was about to break.

"Zasha's sire did that, you know." Tenzin looked at Brigid. "He ran hunts on humans for his own amusement."

"Ivan would have made his great-grandsire proud."

"Yes, Oleg and Zasha's sire was awful. He raped and murdered all along the river systems in Europe, traveling by boat and raiding human towns. Then the old ones stepped in and told him to stop. I believe he was rather irritated at the time."

"Why?"

"Because to him, humans were somewhat amusing food. He never believed they were equal to vampires, and he thought the natural order of the world was to have vampires lead it."

"No, why did the ancients tell him to stop?"

"Oh." Tenzin shrugged. "I think he was drawing too much attention. I wasn't in Europe then. I was in Tibet, but I heard the stories later when I was traveling with Giovanni. It was around the same time that my sire retired to Penglai. The age of vampire conquest was over. The humans were becoming too many. Some had even stopped believing in the gods." She smiled. "It was time for vampires to become a legend, not a reality."

"So Zasha's sire stopped."

"In a manner of speaking, but he never stopped believing he had the right to treat humans as his food."

"No matter what the ancients said?"

Tenzin sighed. "How much honesty do you really want, Brigid Connor?"

Brigid slid down to the floor and sat across from Tenzin. Her eyes were defiant. "Tell me."

Maybe it would help her start thinking like a vampire, which would be good for Tenzin and for Carwyn too. The girl was far too idealistic.

Tenzin started. "Why do you judge me for killing Temur's sons?"

"We're being honest?"

Tenzin nodded.

"Because that man didn't do anything to you. My stepfather abused me. He has family, but I wouldn't dream of murdering them because he was awful. They had nothin' to do with it."

"And you believe human life has innate value."

Brigid blinked. "Of course it does."

Tenzin shook her head. "No of course. Why? Why is it valuable?"

"Because it is?"

"Is ant life innately valuable?" She glanced out the window. "How about insects? The cow meat you ate last night? The pickled egg from the chicken or the eagle nesting in the tree outside?"

"All life is valuable, but human life?—"

"Is brief, harsh, and painful." Tenzin lifted her chin. "And most of all, it is small. It is small in the way that a flower petal is small. Beautiful and fleeting and valuable for those very reasons. That is my philosophy, and you are allowed your own. Because human life is so short, it should be allowed to exist for the brief flash that it is. I do not crush beauty for no reason. That would be as stupid and crude as crushing a flower."

"But you're not going to lose sleep if you accidentally trip over it while you're walking," Brigid said. "Flower crushed. Sad, but not a tragedy."

Tenzin nodded once. The young one was beginning to understand. "Brief. Harsh. Painful."

Brigid whispered, "And beautiful because of it."

"No ancient I have ever known—save for Giovanni's grandsire Cato maybe—really believes humans are anything more than amusing food or pretty flowers. Remember that."

"So preserving human life is only a form of self-preservation," Brigid said, "that allows them to live the lives they want in peace."

"And Zasha's antics are disturbing that peace," Tenzin said. "Which is why no one powerful in the vampire world will be bothered when they are dead."

"Do you think Zasha knows that?"

Tenzin laughed a little. "I think they revel in it. Whatever lies they have told themself, they are asking to be caught."

The realization came a fraction of a second later.

Oh.

Tenzin's heart softened just a little.

The memory flashed in her mind. A vampire on her knees, pleading with Tenzin, not for life but for death.

Kill me. I don't want to live without him.

Zasha had a death wish. They had been nursing one for years. But like a phoenix flaming into ash, they would burn as many as possible in their desperate attempt to die.

"Leave," Tenzin whispered. "I want to call my mate."

"You can't tell him where we are." Brigid's voice was petulant.

Tenzin glared at her. "Out. I'll tell my mate whatever I want."

Brigid curled her lip, baring a single fang, and Tenzin had to admire her bravado. She could crush the young vampire against the wall and force her own fire down her throat, but she wouldn't.

New Year's resolutions.

She heard Ben's voice in her mind and wanted to see his face.

"Out."

He was angry and so beautiful Tenzin nearly wept.

She had turned off most of the lights in the room save for the one illuminating her face. There was a darkness in his eyes, and she longed to be with him. She would roll around in that darkness and wrap it around herself, holding his light safe in her hands.

"I miss you."

He laughed a little, but it wasn't from happiness. "You left me."

"You're already in Alaska or near it," she said. "I can feel you."

"You're full of shit. You cannot."

"Did you feel when they shot my leg?"

His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. "Who did it?"

That was a yes.

"It was a misunderstanding, and you know I'm already healed." She leaned closer to the electronic tablet, and it flickered. She forced herself to lean back. "I miss you."

"You said that already," Ben said. "You knew that was going to happen when you left."

"Yes."

"So why did you do it?"

Tenzin pursed her lips. "I thought I was doing the right thing, but I was…" She trailed off when she realized what she'd been about to say.

"What's that?" Light finally came to Ben's eyes. "Finish the sentence, Tiny."

"No."

"Because you were about to say that you were wrong?"

How could she love him and also want to hurt him at the same time? Emotions were far too complicated.

Something about seeing her stymied must have brightened his mood. "I'm getting closer."

Tenzin sneered. "If you weren't with that large earth vampire, you'd already be here."

"How do you know I'm with?—?"

"Because men are predictable." Tenzin plucked at a string on her tunic. "You knew I was going to Brigid. You knew Brigid had left Carwyn. So you went to Carwyn. Did you fight him?" She smiled a little. "I wish I could have seen that. What did you do to him?"

"Not much. It was muddy, and he's a lot stronger than I thought."

"Yes, he does like being underestimated, but he has very ancient blood. If he fed from humans, he'd be a terror." Tenzin cocked her head. "You're so beautiful."

"Stop." He angled the tablet so she couldn't see his face.

"Benjamin!" She sat up straight. "Turn it back."

"No, I'm not going to let you look at me until you tell me what you've found out so far."

He fought dirty. "Why? You're going to be here in a couple of nights at most. I know you're traveling north."

"And the air tells me you were moving around a lot tonight, so tell me why."

She was mentally plotting how she was going to get her revenge for Benjamin hiding his face when he reached over and snapped his fingers in front of the camera.

"Focus," he said. "What were you doing?"

"Turn the camera back so I can see you and I'll tell you."