Chapter Twenty-Four

Ben felt the ground rock with several minor earthquakes that were probably going to confuse human geologists for a while.

"It's good," Tenzin said from her position curled into his side. "It lets off tension."

"Yeah, they both looked pretty worked up."

"I mean from fault lines. Alaska is very geologically active."

He smiled. "Right."

Tenzin looked up at Ben. "This was the longest we've been apart since we mated."

"Trust me, I know."

"I missed you."

His eyebrow went up. "Were you surprised?"

"A little bit." She stared into the darkness of the light-secure room. "I do understand why Zasha hates me."

"I do too. That doesn't mean you were wrong to kill their mate." His arm tightened around her. "Did you kill humans for food when you were young?"

"Rarely. I wasn't allowed to hunt when I was newly turned. Sometimes they gave me humans to feed on. Or animals. Mostly they didn't let me have fresh blood. They wanted to keep me weak."

His arm tightened. "Tenzin."

"I'm not going to tell you things if you're going to react emotionally."

He let out a frustrated huff. "How can I not react emotionally? I love you and I hate that you were hurt."

She turned her face to his. "I survived. That's the part you should remember."

"I know." He bent down and kissed her forehead. He set his questions and reactions about Tenzin's past to the side. "We have hours before nightfall. Tell me what you discovered at Oleg's."

"Well." She took a long breath. "He's more attractive than I realized. And he has a very dry sense of humor. His personal chef is excellent, but his men almost all smell like pickled eggs. Is that a Russian delicacy? If it is?—"

"I'm talking about Zasha." Ben closed his eyes. "I don't— You think Oleg is attractive?"

"Aesthetically yes, but we would probably kill each other if we spent much time together, so he would make a terrible lover." She patted his shoulder. "And of course I am loyal to you, and you desire monogamy."

"I appreciate your consideration," Ben muttered. "About Zasha?"

"Ah." She nodded. "It has the appearance of chaos, but I think it is just the opposite. This was all carefully planned."

"What was carefully planned? The raids?"

"Yes. And the missing ships you mentioned." She squeezed his hand. "I do not think it is a coincidence that Zasha's violence in Alaska coincides with Oleg's aggression."

"Oleg's aggression?" Ben frowned. "Are you saying that you think Katya's right? That Oleg and Zasha are working together?"

"No, but maybe Zasha wants Katya to believe that they're working with Oleg and?—"

"Then Oleg might think that Zasha is working with Katya." Ben nodded. "Why take on your enemies when you could simply turn them on each other?"

"But why?" Tenzin shrugged. "You think Zasha wants this territory? They have never given an indication that they want an empire."

"No," Ben muttered, "but maybe Zasha heard about global warming."

She narrowed her eyes. "Global warming?"

"It's this thing that's happening because modern humans burn a ton of?—"

"I know what global warming is," she snapped. "Why would Zasha care about it? They have plenty of money. Global warming is going to affect poor humans, not wealthy vampires."

"If enough sea ice melts, there'll be new shipping channels through the Arctic Ocean."

Tenzin said, "Oleg controls half the Arctic shipping lanes from his territory in Russia."

"And Zasha could control the rest if they take Alaska. They are stealing ships."

Tenzin cocked her head to the side. "Zasha wouldn't take on Oleg directly."

"No, they wouldn't. But remember, Katya thinks Zasha and Oleg are working together."

Tenzin muttered, "And she's overextended. She's not really in control of this place. She's losing control of it just like Oleg did."

"Maybe that's inevitable," Ben said. "It's so massive."

"But if this was your only territory…" Tenzin turned to him. "Maybe Zasha finally wants to settle down."

"Settle down?

"Yes." She remembered a snowy valley between two mountain ranges and the scent of cold ocean in her nose. "Maybe they want to settle down in a place that feels familiar."

Ben sat up. "But Zasha knows there are two powerful vampires who want to control those shipping lanes."

"They see an opportunity." She sat up and crossed her legs. "Zasha starts attacking the coastal villages. They go back and forth between the territories."

"Katya blames Oleg." Ben nodded. "Oleg blames Katya."

"Put the bear at the throat of the wolf and see which one kills the other first. Whoever survives will be weak, and the other will be finished.

"It fits what's happened, so why doesn't it feel right?" Ben raked a hand through his hair. "These endless nights are throwing my head in a blender. At this point I'd murder Zasha Sokholov just so I could get back to New York."

Tenzin opened her mouth, then shut it quickly.

Ben could tell she had something to say. "Tenzin?"

"I have to tell you something and you're going to be upset, but I want you to remember that no humans were hurt and I am telling you this now because if you lose your temper?—"

"Tenzin." His entire body went stiff.

"—we are contained in this room and no one will see you out of control."

Ben felt dread curl in his belly. "What happened?"

She turned to Ben and met his gaze. "Someone burned our home in New York."

He felt a fist squeeze his heart. "Our place?"

"Yes."

"How much damage?—?"

"It's basically gone," she said quickly. "Chloe sent pictures, and whoever did it used an accelerant of some kind, and we're on the top floor so the firefighters…" She took a breath and held it.

"It's gone?"

She nodded. "It's gone."

It was a house. It was just a house, and she'd already told him that no one was hurt.

No humans were hurt.

He choked out the question. "The birds?"

"Probably they are dead."

They were birds. They were birds.

Their life was always going to be short.

Except those brightly colored creatures had brought Tenzin joy and peace, and some nights seeing that was the only thing that kept Ben from cursing eternal night.

"Tenzin—"

"They could have flown away. We probably won't ever know."

He whispered, "Tenzin."

"Gavin is investigating because he's very angry that Chloe might have been hurt, though I suspect that whoever burned our house timed it so that she was not hurt because hurting her wouldn't have distracted us—which is doubtless the intention—it would have simply provoked even greater enemies."

His heart ached, and it wasn't only for himself.

It was just a house, and it shouldn't matter so much. In the centuries of life stretching before him, he would gain and lose property. There would be homes that were lost because of natural disasters or simply because they became too exposed.

But their town house in New York was where he'd fallen in love with Tenzin. It was the nest he'd created to tempt her to New York with him. It was the place where she'd held him when life fell apart.

"It's just a house," he whispered.

"It was your home." She reached over and stroked the back of his neck. "I know that it was important to you."

"We're going to kill Zasha," Ben said woodenly. "And every person who is working with them. Not because of our house but because it's the right thing to do to keep them from harming anyone else."

But also maybe a little bit because of Tenzin's birds.

Hungary, Ninth Century CE

Tenzin walked through the rubble along the edges of the Duna River, stepping over corpses that humans had left to rot.

Waste. So much waste.

The blood was already spoiling in their veins, which made her lip curl. It was dark along the riverbank, and she could hear other vampires in the distance, scavenging among the victims of this raid to find humans with enough life that they could use them for food.

Her kind were predators by nature, but they were scavengers when the opportunity presented itself.

She came across a barely living victim a few moments later. The girl was no more than thirteen or fourteen and had propped herself on an overturned boat. She was holding her intestines in her lap, watching the water flow by as she blinked slowly and faded away.

A vampire approached from the forest, but Tenzin flung out an arm and grabbed them by the neck. "What are you doing?"

The young man was ravenous, probably a newborn. "She's alive; her blood is still pumping."

"There are others. Leave her."

He shrieked, and it sounded like a ferret screaming. "I want her!"

"Are you willing to die?" Tenzin bared her fangs and hissed.

His eyes went wide, and Tenzin saw the water behind him stir, so she threw the young one in the air and punched him with a column of wind that sent the creature soaring into the forest on the opposite side of the river.

Tenzin turned back to the girl and bent down. Her skin was milk white, and her lips were turning blue. "You're dying."

She had hair the color of polished copper and clear brown eyes that looked up at Tenzin, but there was no sense of comprehension. The girl murmured in a language Tenzin didn't speak. Magyar, perhaps.

Tenzin watched the girl as her eyes drifted back to the river. She sat down in the mud next to the girl, wondering if she was in pain or if shock had settled in.

"It's not a bad place to die," Tenzin murmured. "The air hasn't turned rancid yet. There's no scent of rot. Most of the blood washed away when it rained today."

The girl let out a soft breath and reached out, bloody fingers reaching for Tenzin's hand.

"I can't give you any healing." Tenzin glanced at her wound. "I'm surprised you're still alive."

She said something else, and her fingers curled around Tenzin's.

"You want me to hold your hand?" Tenzin frowned. "I can do that."

She held the girl's hand in her own, squeezing her fingers and snarling at the dog that lurked on the edge of the river.

The Duna flowed south and east, the water gathering all the blood and dirt from the violent land it crossed, flowing down to a sea that entered another sea and another and another until it returned to the sky to spread over the earth again.

"Your blood will be part of that," Tenzin said. "You're not dying really. Your body will feed flowers and grass. Your tears will return to the sea. One day the blood that is leaving you right now will fall as rain on the grass that your people walk on, and your spirit will exist in them and in another form." She turned to the girl, who was staring at the river again. "Nothing is wasted in the end. Everything has a purpose."

She spotted a vampire from the corner of her eye, not a newborn like the first but a vibrant warrior with long braids the color of chestnut lying over his shoulders and leather armor with silver trim covering his chest. He was probably one of the many who'd raided this river town the previous night at dusk.

She spoke in a Slavic tongue she thought he might recognize. "Hail, Varangian."

The vampire lifted a single hand, then put it on the hilt of the blade at his hip. "Hail, Khazar."

Tenzin looked at the dying girl. "I will sit with her until her spirit leaves."

The vampire looked at the human, then at the rubble around him. "I was sent to finish any survivors."

"That is a kindness."

"Is it?" The man blinked grey eyes that were not unlike Tenzin's own.

"Killing those who have survived this raid will end their suffering," she said. "So yes, it is a kindness. But this girl no longer feels her pain, so you will leave her alone."

The hand went back on the hilt of his blade. "I was sent?—"

"You were not sent." Tenzin knew who had done this. "Truvor has no regard for humans, and you're one of his sons, aren't you?"

The warrior frowned. "Aren't you?"

Tenzin smirked. "Does Truvor hire or sire female Khazars? I didn't know." She wasn't a Khazar—she was something much older, but that name was one the raider would know.

The vampire looked closer. "I didn't realize you were a woman."

Tenzin wasn't surprised. She'd been dressing like a man since she started her journey at the Black Sea. It was an easy way to avoid attention.

"You should leave," the vampire said.

"What is your element, Truvor's man?"

"A dangerous one."

Tenzin looked up when she smelled the hint of smoke.

Interesting.

"So Truvor has a fire vampire with him. No wonder other immortals have left him alone. You're attracting attention from human regents though. Tell your sire he needs to stop."

"I'm not the reason they leave him alone."

"You're one of them, and you know it. It's why you have crept from the camp and are going to ease the suffering of the humans who are dying slowly. You know he values you, and you feel guilt."

The girl's breath turned ragged, and there was a rattling sound in her chest. She tried to sit up but fell back on the rock she'd crawled to.

She muttered something; then her breathing grew worse.

Tenzin shifted and put her arm around the girl's back, lifting her so she could watch the river as her breath grew more and more labored.

The warrior stepped closer, his hand reaching out before he clenched it into a fist. "She's suffering."

"Very unlikely." Tenzin had sent a wave of amnis over the woman as soon as she touched her hand, clouding her mind and easing her into the darkness.

"Why don't you kill her?" the man asked.

"Because you already did."

"I didn't." His voice was bitter. "What do these people have? Nothing we need. I didn't want?—"

"Whether you wanted it or not, you did." Tenzin stroked a hand over the girl's copper hair. "Isn't she pretty? Such unusual hair." Tenzin hadn't seen hair so bright in a long time. Was that what sunlight looked like? It reminded her of rubies in firelight.

Beautiful.

The vampire stared at the dying girl. "She's… human."

"Is that all you can say?" Tenzin looked up, then reached over and plucked a purple violet from the base of a rock. "A flower. I should crush it because I can." She squeezed the violet in her hand and dropped it on the grass. "See how stupid that sounds?"

"Who are you?"

"Someone you don't want to meet if you make a habit of crushing flowers." Tenzin lowered the girl's head to her shoulder and stroked her hair. "My name is Tenzin."

He sucked in a sharp breath.

He'd heard of her. Good.

"Go, Varangian." Tenzin glanced at the young fire vampire before he melted back into the darkness. "If you survive, I suspect I will see you again."