Chapter Six

Ben slept very little that day. He could feel Tenzin stirring in his blood, her restless energy reaching out to him while she daydreamed wherever she was. The throbbing in his thigh was long gone, and his mind was tormented by what Tenzin had done.

Tenzin and Zasha are more alike than different.

It wasn't true. He'd seen the kindness in her while Zasha was an empty vessel. Tenzin was a fury when the vulnerable were brutalized. He'd seen the flash of anger in her eyes when she witnessed casual cruelty.

She was more than what she had been.

Ben remembered a hospital room a very long time ago and a boy who had never been a boy sitting beside a woman he'd been trying to protect.

Was this the first?

He remembered the hot suck of the blade as it entered the man's belly, the force of it as he shoved it higher, under the ribs, so that his attacker would die quickly.

Just as he'd been taught.

You were defending Dez. You were protecting the baby. The sound of hospital monitors and the slow beep of a heart monitor behind her quiet words. You did well, Benjamin. You did right.

She'd been the only one to see him cry after he'd killed the first time. The first but not the last. Life was brutal, and immortal life was even more so. He lived in a world of predators, but he'd known that ever since he could remember, and vampires weren't the predators who scared him the most.

One of Ben's earliest memories was blood on a shattered mirror and the way it glowed translucent when the morning light hit the reflection. It didn't stay translucent, of course. Blood dried hard and dark, not like in the movies.

Blood was almost black when it was dry.

Tenzin knew that. She saw that. She didn't judge him for being a killer. While Ben had tried his best during his years as a human in the vampire world and now as a vampire himself, he had killed again.

Sometimes there was no other choice.

She's a killer. You have to know that. You have to understand that about her, Benjamin, or you will never understand Tenzin.

Maybe he'd never understood Tenzin. She guarded her secrets more carefully than her gold. Was Carwyn right? Was all this violence—the attack on Chloe, the hikers taken in Northern California, the boy kidnapped in Las Vegas—was it all because of something Tenzin started?

Did he know her at all?

"I want all of you."

"You have me. As no other has. Can you accept that without asking for more? When I tell you that the blood of Temur is part of a story you do not want and would never understand, can you accept that?"

The flash of her smile in moonlight. The tender way she fed their pet birds, her eyes gentle on the tiny fluttering creatures with the rapid hearts. Her patience with him when he'd been young and angry and pushing her away.

Pushing her away because he was grateful for immortal life and had hated to admit it.

He pressed his eyes closed and whispered into the air. "You left me this time."

They had danced for years, closing in and pushing away, but since the moment they had shared blood, there had been very little time they'd been apart.

He felt her heart in his own chest. He was the only one who could make it move.

"Where are you?" He rose and paced the small light-safe room where Carwyn had stowed him.

Could he accept her? Could he accept that she was a killer? She'd asked him to, and he'd agreed. He'd said yes. He'd made a promise.

Whatever he was going into, Tenzin was his mate. And if she was the cause of all this, he had eternity to work beside her to make things right.

But first he had to find her.

Ben closed his eyes, tore his shirt from his body, and opened his arms wide in the darkness. He drew air into his lungs, suffusing his body with as much of his element as he could.

He reached out with his amnis, searching for the pull of her power. A thread. A flicker of elemental dust in the wind. Anything that could connect them.

They were wind and air and the void. The void was in everything. Even the matter of things in bodies was visible to Ben if he looked long enough. He saw the space between.

He turned slowly, his arms stretched out, searching for her.

He turned south and immediately knew she wasn't there.

He turned again, spinning slowly as the air around him swirled, caressing his bare skin and traveling from his blood, through tiny cracks in the vents, the seams of the shutters and the windows, through the rafters and into the open air.

Bathed in darkness, his amnis touched the sun and flew away, north and west and over the water. She existed in darkness, and that's where his element met hers.

I see you.

He whispered her name. "Tenzin."

Tenzin, holder of wisdom.

Guardian of secrets.

The ancient girl. The newly mated. Blood of his blood. His mate and his destiny.

She was the darkness and he called to her.

Carwyn could feel the young vampire's restless energy in the light sleep where he drifted. He was over a thousand years old, and the only time he slept deeply anymore was after a full meal and a thorough fuck.

The agitated vampire was keeping him awake, and it was annoying. The moment night fell, he opened the door to his room to find Ben already in the middle of the living room.

"They're in Alaska. Somewhere near the ocean."

"Brilliant." Carwyn's voice was dry. "So exactly where Katya suspects Zasha is causing trouble? Truly a deduction for the ages." The young one looked deflated, so Carwyn took pity on him. "Katya told me yesterday evening that she thinks Oleg has been trying to expand his territory and push her out. Boats have gone missing, both pleasure yachts and fishing boats the same. There have been violent confrontations and attacks on compounds. She asked me to look into it."

Ben frowned. "I thought you were looking for Brigid."

"I am." The young man truly didn't know how these things worked. He went bounding through life like a giant, lethal puppy. "But Brigid is working with Oleg. Do you think she'd be working with Oleg if he was behind a bunch of violent attacks on the Alaskan coast?"

Ben's eyes went wide. "It's not Oleg—it's Zasha."

"Of course it's Zasha, but try telling Katya that. Oleg is her nemesis at the moment, but if we're going hunting for bad fire vampires and we want Katya's help, then we agree to look for Oleg. We can't just roam around in another vampire's territory; we need some kind of permission to be here." He muttered, "Especially you."

"And if Katya tells me to get out?"

"I'll tell her to fuck off and create an international incident." Carwyn forced a toothy grin. "But since she knows that would be a bad idea, she won't say no."

"So we're looking for Oleg, but we're really looking for Zasha?" Ben lifted one shoulder. "No offense, but I came looking for Tenzin so I could help her kill this vampire. I want to find Tenzin first."

"Before she goes on a vampire-killing spree and pulls my wife into her madness? That's an excellent idea." He pulled a flannel over his shirt before he reached for his heavy jacket. "But there's an order to these things, Benjamin. An order to our world that your mate often ignores because it annoys her, but protocol matters. Territories matter." He shrugged into his jacket. "I hate being cold. Why couldn't they go hunting for a vampire who was causing mayhem in Rio?"

"I don't even notice the cold anymore."

Of course he didn't. The boy was a wind vampire.

"Also? You travel with me, you're not flying," Carwyn grabbed his keys from the dish on the counter. "I'm not following along after you like the tail on a dog."

"That's fine. How do we get north? How do we get to that part of Alaska without flying? Driving could take days."

Carwyn waited for Ben to pull on a black jacket he'd dried the night before. He'd need to get the boy?—

Man.

The vampire was in his thirties at this point. Wouldn't do to call his best friend's child a boy anymore. Not when he'd gone and gotten himself turned into a vampire and then mated with a small and unpredictable monster.

"We're going to meet Katya, and then we're going shopping." Carwyn eyed him up and down. "You're never going to blend in, Tall, Dark, and Pale, but you could stand out a little less."

Ben stared at Carwyn. "You're wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt."

"But I have a flannel over all that." Carwyn plucked at the well-worn plaid. "You look like a vampire from New York City."

Ben narrowed his eyes. "Can't imagine why."

"City boy." He walked toward the door. "Come on. You think Tenzin is on the Alaskan coast, and that matches where Katya thinks Zasha is. Let's go introduce you and get you permission to be in her territory. Then we'll get you some proper clothes."

"Benjamin Vecchio." Katya was curled up in front of a roaring fire, but she didn't look cozy and she wasn't pleased to see him. "So now I have to assume your mate is also in my territory."

"To help Brigid find Zasha." Ben sat across from the vampire, who looked barely older than his little sister, and tried to take her seriously. "That's all."

"Not as an agent of Penglai Island?" Katya raised an eyebrow. "Not as a representative of your sire? Not in cooperation with Oleg, who has expressed interest in the past in taking Alaska with the help of the Eight Immortals of Penglai so they can expand their shipping channels and access the Arctic when the planet warms up?"

Ben opened his mouth, then closed it again. Carwyn was right. There was a lot of this stuff he didn't understand.

"Hold on," Carwyn said. "You didn't mention that last bit when we spoke last night."

"Because I thought I was dealing with you and Brigid alone." She jerked her head at Ben. "Not these two. I don't trust either of them."

"Well, I do." Carwyn's voice was blunt. "And I vouch for them. Are you questioning me?"

Ben raised both his hands. "I'm following my mate, who is following Brigid Connor, who is tracking Zasha Sokholov. I promise you, Tenzin is not an agent of Penglai."

"Are you?"

Fuck. "No."

"You're Zhang Guo's first child in thousands of years," Katya said. "He must have had a reason for turning you. Maybe it is for your extensive connections in Europe and North America. I understand you're also a close associate of Gavin Wallace. Is Gavin looking for new investors in his software business? Maybe you're here to negotiate with Oleg."

Carwyn burst out laughing and leaned forward, slightly breaking the laser focus Katya's eyes had on Ben. "Katya, you know why he's here. Why are you interrogating him?"

Katya narrowed her eyes and smiled a little bit. "I was having fun breaking his brain. You spoil everything."

"He's stressed about his mate. You don't want to piss this one off."

Carwyn flicked a hand at Ben, and Ben felt his fangs fall at the airy dismissal. His temper was building again.

"Boats." Katya kept her eyes on Ben. "I'll get you up to Alaska, but you'll be on a boat."

"You don't have a plane?"

"Not one for you. Zasha has taken my boats. I want you and Carwyn to find them. I'm sending you to one of my oldest lieutenants. She can help you look for your mates."

"After we find your boats?" Carwyn asked.

"You wanted to go to Alaska, I'm sending you there."

"Winter seems like a bad time for piracy," Ben said.

"It is. That's why they took the boats in the fall, but we haven't seen a trace of them since then, and we haven't seen a trace of their crews either." Her eyes flashed to Carwyn. "Three of my vampires and two dozen of my people in the crews. I don't have anything to tell their families. Find me some answers if you can't find the boats."

"Where?"

"It won't mean anything to you now, but they were off the Queen Charlotte Sound. International waters. The humans have no jurisdiction there."

"Any vampire ships in the area?" Ben asked.

"My boats. Oleg's people. And Penglai."

That's why all the questions about Penglai. The islands off the coast of China—as well being the seat of East Asian immortal government—were also the center of the vast business interests of the Eight Immortals.

"All the big and dangerous players then," Ben said. "I'm a wind vampire, and I'm willing to help Carwyn look into the thefts."

Katya looked him up and down. "Can you grow a beard?"

Vampire hair grew very slowly. "Not in the next day or two."

Katya sighed. "You're going to stick out like a sore thumb, but fine. You have my official permission to be in my territory, which stretches from San Francisco to Point Barrow. I offer no protection for you, and any aggression not officially sanctioned in this meeting is subject to my judgment and punishment should any of my people, mortal or immortal, bring me a complaint."

"What aggression are you officially sanctioning in this meeting?"

Katya narrowed her eyes. "Get Zasha Sokholov out of my territory. Kill them. Maim them. I don't care. Arrest them and take them back to Russia—I wouldn't really suggest that one because others have tried—but get rid of them and get my people back. I'm sick of this shit." She huffed loudly. "This is supposed to be the quiet time of year, Carwyn. I gave people vacation time."

"I know." The big vampire tried to soothe the tiny, irritated vampire. "You know we'll deal honestly with you. And we'll get results."

"And when you run into him—because I know he's involved in this shit too—tell Oleg his taxes just went up for not taking care of his damn sibling."

Ben had a feeling Oleg was going to care about the increased tax bill much more than any threat to Zasha. From what he'd heard, there was no love lost between the Russian and most of his extended family.

"Done." Ben rose. "Thank you, Katya Grigorieva. We'll find our mates and get rid of the fire vampire."

"Not Brigid," Carwyn muttered.

"The other fire vampire."

"Or Oleg," Carwyn muttered.

Katya curled her lip at Carwyn. "I thought those bastards were supposed to be rare. I do not have a single fire vampire in my organization right now, nor do I want one, but it seems like I have fire vampires coming out of my ears all of a sudden."

"We'll take care of it." Ben nodded at the woman, who looked like a grumpy teenager. "Thank you."