Chapter Three

Tenzin looked down at the blood pouring from her thigh. What an odd and unpleasant sensation. "Did they shoot me?"

She looked around for where the sound had originated.

The human was in the guard tower across from the building where she'd landed, the tip of his rifle shaking as he quickly pointed it to the sky with wide eyes.

He muttered something in Russian, a language Tenzin had done her best to forget.

She pointed at him. "Did you shoot me?"

She was already forcing the bullet from her body. She drew her strength from the air, and air was everywhere. It was even in the middle of matter. The air in her blood and body jumped at the manipulation of her amnis, pushing the projectile from the muscle to the surface of her skin.

How truly, horribly unpleasant. It felt like a burn.

"I can't remember if I've ever been shot," she muttered. Had she? She felt like she would have remembered, but then again, she had forgotten more of her very long life than she recalled.

"Tenzin!"

She heard her name from the ground and saw Brigid running toward the guard tower, waving her arms. "It's Tenzin! Oleg is expecting her."

A large man who looked a little like a bigfoot walked out of the low, round-roofed building that reminded Tenzin of a giant yurt.

He gave her a cheerful smile and wave. "Oh hi! I am Lev. Welcome. Sorry about that." He pointed to her. "We tell them to shoot wind vampires we're not expecting."

"That seems on par for Russian hospitality." She didn't shout, but the man heard her anyway.

"Ha!" He grinned. "A good joke. I like you."

"You shouldn't." She started walking toward the edge of the roof, enjoying the sensation of air in the snow. It was powdery and loose, freshly fallen through cold skies.

The wind in this place was crisp and smelled as much of the ocean as the forest. It reminded her of Penglai but with less bowing people.

Nice.

"Tenzin!" Brigid ran up, her head bare. "I'm so sorry about that. Come inside and get warmed up."

She floated down to the ground but only so that they wouldn't look at her strangely. It was dark and cold, and the air was nearly frozen. She adored weather like this; it was so clean. She could have floated in the cold air, soaking it in for hours.

She liked hot weather too, but it was often languid and full of water, which annoyed her. This frosty air, so biting, reminded her of Tibet.

The cold kissed her cheeks, bringing a rare flush to her pale skin. Her eyes were steel grey, the color of a winter storm, and her hair had grown out the last time she took blood from her mate, so it was a black curtain nearly past her shoulders again.

Truly, new blood was very odd.

"Hi." Brigid was waiting for her on the ground. "Thanks for coming."

Tenzin narrowed her eyes and read the young fire vampire's eyes. "You don't want to thank me. You're glad I'm here, but you're angry too." She leaned closer. "And you've been crying."

That immediately irritated Brigid, which Tenzin found satisfying.

"Shut up and come inside." Brigid stomped off, and Tenzin followed her, casting one last glance at the guard in the tower who had shot her.

She narrowed her eyes, squinted at him, and pointed.

A hint of urine spoiled the fresh smell of the air.

Ew. She ducked inside the round building and was immediately assaulted by the smell of too many men.

"This place smells foul." She looked up at Lev, who was standing by the door in a pair of blue denim overalls and a red T-shirt. "You should clean it."

"We do clean it."

"Not well enough."

Brigid frowned. "It's not that bad."

Ugh. These people were disgusting. "Where is my room?" She looked down. "I need to mend my pants."

"We'll get you a new pair," Brigid said. "They don't look very heavy."

"I don't need a new pair. I made these and I'll wear them. I just need to mend them." She didn't like most clothes. The only ones she liked were the ones she made and the ones that her designer friend Arthur made specifically for her.

Arthur had perfected the art of hiding dagger sheaths in formal dresses. He was a genius.

Tenzin took a dagger from her tunic and jabbed the tip into the wound in her thigh, prying the bullet the last inch out of her skin.

Brigid sucked in a breath. "Oh my God."

Tenzin showed the bullet to Lev. "I don't know what it's made of, but it itches." She reached over, wiped the tip of her dagger on his sleeve to clean it, and stuck it back in her tunic along with the spent bullet. "Where is my room?"

Brigid and Lev exchanged a look.

"Come with me," Brigid said. "I'll get you settled in."

Tenzin followed her, wishing there was some way to irritate the woman again.

She didn't like the way Brigid Connor had ambushed her in New York. She didn't like being pulled away from the very curated life she'd built with her new mate.

She didn't like thinking about Zasha Sokholov.

They walked down a long hallway that circled the outer wall of the building, and Tenzin realized it was a yurt, just a very large one with permanent rooms. There was a hallway that ran along the outside wall, which meant all the interior rooms were windowless and light safe. The ceilings were quite tall, and the floor was sunk three feet into the ground, meaning it was accessible for earth vampires too.

"This reminds me of something."

"One of Oleg's men said it was designed to mimic the houses the native people built here. That's why it's set into the ground and doesn't have windows."

"It will be easier to heat as well."

A low tent, vampires buried in the earth.

The taste of dirt in her mouth.

Tenzin blinked out of the reverie. "It's smart to build houses like native people do. They know the seasons best."

"I'm sure that was the thinking, yes." Brigid paused by one of the doors, then turned and handed Tenzin a key. "Old fashioned locks. Nothing electronic for us to mess up. Dead bolts inside."

"The nights are long here."

"And you don't sleep."

Tenzin leaned against the outer wall and examined her. "You should be glad to see me. These men are Oleg's. They are not your allies. They could be working with Zasha."

"I know that. I also know that you caused this. I don't know how or why, but somehow you did. Tell me I'm wrong."

The little fire vampire was smarter than Tenzin remembered.

Tenzin said nothing in response, and Brigid pushed away and started walking down the hall.

"I'll help you kill Zasha."

Brigid stopped and turned. "Why?"

"Why not? I'll teach you to hunt them, and then you can kill them and go home to your big, loud earth-vampire mate."

"Why not you?"

"I've never liked Carwyn. He smiles too much."

Brigid's eye twitched. "No. Why don't you go hunt and kill Zasha yourself? Since I'm gonna assume I'm right and you caused this somehow, why don't you take care of the mess you made?"

The smell of smoke and scorched stew burned to life in Tenzin's memory. "Because I made a vow."

She was dreaming, and when she woke, her mirror image was sitting in a corner of the dark room, lit only by a single incandescent light bulb.

Aday smiled when Tenzin spotted her. "You're sleeping again."

"A little bit."

"I thought you trained yourself not to do that anymore."

"I didn't want to see you."

"Too bad." The mischievous vampire flew up and perched in the wooden rafters over Tenzin's head. "Remember this? Remember when you killed them all?"

"Why are you here?"

"I come when I'm needed."

"I don't need you anymore. You can leave."

"Are you sure about that?" She spoke a name that Tenzin hadn't heard in centuries, a name that was dead to her. "Saraal."

"I'm called Tenzin now."

"But that's not who you are." The vampire turned in slow circles in the air. "Is it?"

Tenzin wasn't sure if she was still dreaming. Sleep was foreign to her, and it had only come back to her when she and Ben had started exchanging blood. For thousands of years before that, she had not slept.

She'd slept at one time in her life; then she hadn't.

And now she was sleeping again.

Was the vision in her room only that? A vision? A memory best left on the ancient steppes of Central Asia? She had laid Aday to rest in a shrine in Tibet where the people worshipped her as a goddess and her sire had come to make amends.

She had buried her in the muddy banks of the Amur River, thrown her in the depths of Lake Baikal, and left her hanging in a deodar cedar, food for the carrion birds that nested in its great, dense branches.

"Why are you in this place?" the vision asked.

"Because I should have finished the job. I didn't know Temur's Blood had truly mated. That means his blood still lives."

Aday flew down to kiss her softly on the mouth. "And we can't have that, can we? Temur's blood must die. You should kill it."

"I made a vow."

"To the man?" Aday shook her head softly. "His blood has made you weak." She smiled slowly and ran soft fingers down Tenzin's cheek. "Then again, he made you dream again, so I do not hate him. I missed you."

"You're not real."

"I'm real when you need me." She leaned forward and whispered, "You made that vow. I did not. Let me live and I will kill Zasha. I break no promises."

"You break everything."

Aday smiled. "As I said, I come when I am needed."

"You are no more. The vow is mine."

"Then flee this place and leave Zasha to the Russians. They belong together. Leave your little friend and fly away."

"Zasha needs to be stopped. I never should have let them live." She'd relived that night a hundred times since seeing Zasha's face through the smoke of a burning wheat field. "I should have killed them when I ended Temur's line."

"Why you? You've killed enough. What do you owe the world?"

New Year's resolutions. Tenzin closed her eyes. "I need to do this. I made a vow not to harm Zasha, but I can help Brigid kill them. That does not break my vow. So Aday, you need to leave."

"And you need to wake up."

Tenzin opened her eyes, and the dream was gone. The room was empty, and so was her stomach. She needed to feed. She needed to meditate.

She needed to find Brigid and get this done.

The longer she was away from Benjamin, the more volatile she became. She hadn't dreamed of the small vampire in years, and now she was back?

This situation was tenuous. So was her mind.

She looked at the ruby ring on her left hand, the one she never took off even though she didn't wear jewelry. She collected it. She rarely wore it.

I don't believe in marriage.

Did I ask you? It's a ring. You like rubies. Wear the ring.

She wore the ring and gave him one of her own. It was made of gold taken from Solomon's mines, an ancient artifact of unspeakable value she'd bartered for in the second century after listening to a story from an Ethiopian merchant traveling through Arabia. He had enchanted her with his tales of war and love, and she'd given him one of her favorite swords in exchange for his gold ring just because she knew it would help her remember that night.

Ben had dropped that ring down the sink in the bathroom twice and had to take apart the plumbing to find it.

So normally Tenzin was fine with losing her grip on reality because Benjamin was with her. Benjamin grounded her. Their connection was the thin tether that anchored her to what was left of her humanity.

And then she'd left him in New York.

He was not going to be happy about that.