Chapter Four

"Careful, boy."

Ben glared at the old vampire standing in the rain. Carwyn was barefoot, strolling through the rain without a care in the world while Ben had just felt a punch through his amnis like fire. "Where the fuck is Tenzin?"

Carwyn snarled. "You think I know where she is?"

"You and Brigid are joined at the hip, old man."

"And you and your tiny sociopath aren't?"

"She's not a fucking—" He bit back his words, but nothing could stop the punch of air that blasted Carwyn in the chest as Ben tried to control his rage. His amnis was out of control.

The air shoved Carwyn back a few feet, and the earth vampire snarled, digging his feet into the ground.

Too late, Ben realized his mistake.

The old vampire didn't even move, but the earth opened up, grabbing Ben's legs and pulling him into the ground as Carwyn charged.

Ben's arm shot out and forced the larger man back, but the pull of the ground didn't stop. Ben tried to reach for the air within the soil, but he felt nothing. The ground was saturated with water, and while his amnis searched for something to grab, there was no purchase.

Ben lifted his arms, letting the air pull him from above, but the ground followed, crawling up his body as Carwyn braced himself, digging his hands into the earth.

"Fucking let me go!" Ben shouted at the behemoth covered in mud.

"Not until you learn some manners," Carwyn growled.

Ben's arm swiped down and the rain and wind followed, battering the vampire on the ground, buffeting him with the force of wind. The trees around the house shook, bending and creaking as Ben manipulated the air.

He might have been caught in the mud, but Ben gathered his element through the downpour and shoved his amnis at the earth vampire who had captured him.

The wind forced Carwyn's head back, but not before he'd sunk himself into the ground, drawing power from the rock, the soil, and the matter around him.

"You think you're strong." Despite the wind, the earth vampire stalked toward him, lifting his legs only to sink them up to the knees as he walked toward Ben. "And you are. But you're young, Benjamin."

Ben was six feet in the air at that point, but the earth holding him hadn't let go. He felt the ground holding him harden as Carwyn's amnis forced the water from the densely packed soil. Within seconds, the earth around Ben's legs felt more like stone than mud.

"Let me go!" Ben was angry and unfocused. He felt a burning pain in his thigh that pumped adrenaline through his body.

"Calm down." Carwyn reached him and rose, the ground beneath the vampire lifting him to meet Ben's eyes.

The moment he was within reach, Ben swung out, his fist meeting Carwyn's rock-hard jaw with the force of a small hurricane.

Carwyn's head snapped back, and the scent of fresh blood filled the air when his jaw came down and his fang sliced through his lip. He snarled and reached out, closing his massive hand around Ben's neck.

The earth followed Carwyn's arm, closing around Ben's throat to choke off his words as Carwyn's element folded around the threat, cutting off his ability to breathe and speak.

Ben tried to force the air into his lungs, but the pressure grew and the mud turned solid around him.

He was slowly being choked by solid rock.

"Calm down," Carwyn said. "This isn't helping anyone."

Ben didn't need air to live. His amnis churned the wind around him, battering Carwyn, but it felt as effective as blowing bubbles at a brick wall. His amnis roused, angry and frustrated. The pain in his leg grew sharper. His rage built.

He will kill you, and she will have no one.

She will be alone.

The thought of his mate in pain and alone in the darkness flipped a switch in his brain. Ben closed his eyes and reached out with his senses.

The air was all around him, surrounding him, holding the water from the clouds, the air remaining in his lungs, but there was nothing in the rock that held him. The earth vampire had pushed everything out of the matter, leaving Ben nothing to manipulate.

Save for the air in his enemy's own body.

He opened his eyes, narrowed them, and watched as Carwyn slowly felt the air sucked from his lungs.

His blue eyes went wide, and he lifted the corner of his lip, baring a bloody fang.

"Bastard," the giant mouthed.

He felt a surge of satisfaction until the press of rock tightened around his neck. The earth vampire's element was slowly hardening around his body, no longer simply choking off the air but digging slowly and steadily into his spine.

His amnis raced in panic, and the air around him lost focus, swirling in spikes and erratic gusts that ripped at his hair and eyes.

What are you doing? Carwyn mouthed the words, his eyes streaming with bloody tears from the wind.

A jolt like a fist around his neck.

The shock of pain and panic snapped Ben back to awareness.

He stared at the man who had watched him grow up, the immortal who had been as much an uncle as a friend.

Carwyn's eyes and mouth were bloody from hurled debris; the air around them was churning with black mud, water, and gravel that sliced at his skin. Ben was bloody and his body was encased in rock.

He shoved his element away so hard that the churning mass of water and mud exploded out and the trees cracked from the force of his amnis.

As soon as he shoved the wind back, he released the air and Carwyn's lungs filled again.

"For fuck's sake, you lunatic, what do you think you're doing?"

Let me go, Ben mouthed, glaring at Carwyn.

"Are you calm?"

Ben looked around at the air that was now still, the rain falling in a light mist around them.

Carwyn eased his fingers back from around Ben's neck. "I'm letting you go."

Moments later, Ben could speak again and he felt the ground around him slowly crumbling away. "Where is she?"

"You think I know?" Carwyn shook his head. "They've done a runner on both of us, boy. Let's go inside and get you cleaned up."

Ben sat at Carwyn's kitchen table, drinking the black tea the vampire had made for both of them. It wasn't the elegant loose tea that Tenzin enjoyed but two bags of cheap black tea dunked in mugs and heavily dosed with milk.

It tasted slightly of paper, but Ben drank it anyway.

"When did she leave?" Carwyn asked.

"Four days ago."

"Brigid left months ago. Right after we found that boy in Vegas that Zasha kidnapped."

"She went to New York. Tenzin didn't tell me. I found out from the O'Briens a couple of weeks after, but Tenzin wouldn't tell me what it was about. Then four days ago?" He flicked his fingers in the air. "Gone."

"It's not a coincidence. They're working together."

Ben sipped the paper-flavored tea. "I tracked her for the first day and then lost her trail. I went to your house in California but you were gone, so I came up here."

"How did you find this place?"

"Gavin's people tracked your stupid van, found the account you used to rent this place."

"Better talk to Lee about that," Carwyn muttered.

"Can't hide from traffic cameras," Ben said. "Get a more boring vehicle."

The earth vampire sat across from him, sliding a bottle of blood-wine across the table. "Drink that. You lost blood and expended a lot of energy."

Ben twisted off the top of the inexpensive variety. "You?"

Carwyn shook his head. "I went hunting at nightfall before I met with Katya."

"Does she know where they are?"

"No. Brigid didn't go through Katya—she got help from Oleg, and I don't know his people. She had better connections there."

"Why did she go to New York? Why did she rope Tenzin into this?"

Carwyn narrowed his eyes. "You know why."

The blood of Temur remembers who you were.

"Zasha Sokholov has some kind of grudge against Tenzin," Ben said. "So Brigid is using her to?—"

"Brigid is using?" Carwyn leaned forward. "Brigid is using Tenzin? No, Benjamin. You've got it backward. Brigid is the one being used."

Ben kept silent because clearly the large, angry man wanted to vent. Carwyn didn't get angry very often. In fact, this was the most furious Ben had ever seen him.

"Brigid has been the one used for years now because somehow this fire vampire got it into their head that Brigid is connected to your mate." The earth vampire continued ranting. "Your mate is the one Zasha is after, and they've been using Brigid to attract her attention."

"Why not just go after Tenzin if she's Zasha's target?" Ben said. "She's not as secretive as she used to be. Everyone in the immortal world knows we're in New York. We don't keep it a secret."

Carwyn gave him a rueful laugh. "And what would this vampire do, Benjamin? Go after Tenzin and her newly turned and already-powerful mate in a frontal attack? Where? In the fortress of Manhattan where you have allies coming out of your ears? What leverage would Zasha have? How would they draw the two of you out? How could they make you vulnerable to attack?"

Ben narrowed his eyes. "We have family."

"You and Tenzin have a very small circle of people you care about, and those people are very well protected," Carwyn said. "Your sister is the child of two of the most powerful vampires in the world, including a fire vampire Zasha fears. Your friend Chloe is married to a vampire who has enormous power, influence, and protection. Zasha is not going to come after you directly."

"So what? Brigid is powerful, and she has your entire clan protecting her," Ben said. "She's not vulnerable."

"You think not?" His smile turned bitter. "The problem with my wife, Benjamin, is not that she's vulnerable. It's that she cares for the vulnerable."

Ben sat back and felt goose bumps rise along his arms.

"You know this," Carwyn said. "You know exactly why Zasha targeted Brigid. Because Brigid cares. What would Tenzin have done if Zasha had kidnapped a human under the O'Briens' aegis while they were in New York?"

"She'd have told them to deal with it." Ben's voice was soft.

"Tenzin would have wiped her hands of it," Carwyn said. "She wouldn't have even sent a sympathy card."

"The O'Briens are not Tenzin's people." He loved his mate, but her focus and protection were very, very narrow. "They have their own clan."

"Brigid's heart weeps for a wounded mouse, Benjamin. It's one of the reasons I love her and one of the reasons I hate her sometimes. Because every single person" —he jabbed his thumb on the table so hard it creaked— "who needs her has her. Give her a human in distress, and she'll cut her own vein and bleed to make them safe."

Ben swallowed hard because he knew Carwyn spoke the truth. Brigid had done the same for him. When he was an angry newborn, she was one of the few people he'd confided in and one of the only ones who'd put up with his shit.

"That's why she left you," he said quietly.

"Minimizing collateral damage." Carwyn set down his mug. "I'm furious with her, but I understand why. It's not a bad strategy."

Ben swallowed hard, setting aside the paper tea to drink the bottle of blood-wine. He tipped the bottle up, wiping the blood-enriched wine from his lips after he had finished. "So what do we do?"

"We fucking find them," Carwyn said. "They think they don't need us?—"

"Bullshit," Ben blurted.

"Exactly." Carwyn leaned back and nodded. "So tell me, what do you know about Zasha? Why do they hate Tenzin so much?"

The blood of Temur remembers who you were.

"I don't know everything," Ben said, "but I know a little."

"Tell me. I'm not going into this blind."

What if Temur has other blood in the immortal world? What if he has descendants who don't even know who he was?

Then I will consider if their lives are worthy.

Should you be the judge of that?

I'm the only one with the right, and that right was born of the blood of my own children. I am not interested in justice.

Ben wasn't going to spill his mate's secrets, but he knew that Carwyn and Tenzin had very different worldviews. They got along because they both loved Ben's uncle, who considered the two old vampires his closest friends in the world.

Ben said quietly, "Tenzin comes from a different time."

"I come from a different time too."

"Yes, but I'm trying to tell you…" Ben frowned. "Our sire is even older than Tenzin. He's an ancient."

Carwyn nodded. "I know this."

"But until Zhang sired me, she was his only child," Ben said. "It's one of the reasons I can do…" He lifted a hand and stirred the air gently in the room. "All this."

Carwyn shrugged. "You're powerful, but you could work on your control."

Fine. He'd take that because it was true; Tenzin told him the same thing all the time.

"I'm so powerful because for about three thousand years, Zhang didn't have any other children than Tenzin." That wasn't a secret. Everyone who knew his sire knew that.

Carwyn narrowed his eyes. "But Zhang had an army once."

"Yes." Again, this was immortal lore. Nothing Ben was saying was a confidence his mate had shared.

"So an ancient immortal king has an army that dominated most of Asia." Carwyn tipped his chin up, considering. "And then one day your sire decides to give up his power and his army vanishes." Carwyn's fingers spread in the air. "Poof. Gone like the wind, no pun intended."

"Yes. Except for one child," Ben said. "One daughter."

"Who becomes his heir." Carwyn's eyes were steady on Ben. "And Zhang doesn't sire another child for thousands of years. Not until you."

Ben said nothing, but he kept his eyes steady on Carwyn.

Carwyn let out a slow breath. "Tenzin killed the others, didn't she? All of them."

"You know what life must have been for her, living with them," he said quietly. "You can guess."

Ben didn't know everything because Tenzin wouldn't tell him the details, but he wasn't an idiot. He had an idea of what kind of life Tenzin had survived, being the lone daughter in an army of immortal warriors in a time when women—even immortal ones—were property.

Carwyn stared at the table. "Was Zasha in Zhang's army?"

"I don't think so."

"No, of course not. The timing wouldn't fit," Carwyn muttered. "They're not that old. But there's something… something there. It goes back. I know it."

"We don't talk about it," Ben continued. "But you know her."

"I know she's a killer."

Ben flinched, but Carwyn pressed on.

"You have to know that," the old vampire said. "You have to understand that about her, Benjamin, or you will never understand Tenzin. I don't understand her and I never will, but you are her mate."

"She did what was necessary to survive."

"I don't doubt that." Carwyn's voice was harsh. "Any judgment for what she did is between her and her gods. But you and I are different. Brigid is different. We do have lines we won't cross. Tenzin does not."

"She's trying, Carwyn."

"I'm sure she is, but you need to realize that in many ways, Tenzin and Zasha are more alike than different."

The blood of Temur remembers who you were.

Were. Not are.

"She's changed," Ben said. "She's more human now."

"Oh no." Carwyn's eyes were sad. "It's possible she's changed, Benjamin, but she is anything but human. We will win this fight. Do not doubt it. Zasha and all her army could try to take on you and Tenzin, Brigid and me, but they will fail. I have no doubt." He leaned forward. "But make no mistake: there will be no winners when this is over."