“Maybe she’s telling the truth,” Lena said.
“That is the harm in keeping her.” Andre rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he turned toward Lena, and the muscles in his jaw softened. “Ćerka, you must realize the risk in allowing her to stay. At best, we increase his wrath toward us; at worst, she is a spy.”
Lena nodded, and Lucas once again admired Andre’s fatherliness. Ćerka must mean something like daughter, a relationship he and Lena had arrived at awkwardly, but now embraced with devotion.
“It’s your home,” she said, “and your decision.”
Andre rolled his eyes—an oddly childish gesture. He shouted out the door, “Wait one minute while we lower the shield.” He tapped his big, black-booted foot. Nice shoes, probably European, and from the looks of them, longer and wider than Lucas’s feet. Guess they wouldn’t be sharing shoes.
“Do you suppose that is long enough?” Andre asked.
A ridiculous ruse, but necessary.
“Krist, just tell her to come in.” Kos tugged at his short hair.
Lucas went to the door and waved her inside.
When she stepped over the threshold she glanced around. “Hello, Lena, Kosjenic.”
Lena glanced at Kos.
“All clear,” Andre bellowed, as if some mysterious shield operator would throw a switch and turn the thing back on.
Her eyes were so wide he could see white all the way around her irises, and she shook like a cold, wet Chihuahua. Lucas leaned in like all it would take to discover her trustworthiness was a closer look. When she met his gaze, the hair on the back of his neck stood up, as if Ethan’s evil clung to her.
“What happened?” Lena asked.
Gwen’s small chest rose with an inhalation, and she rubbed the back of her hand against her nose. “I realized that if I didn’t leave, he would kill me for the pleasure of watching me suffer, just like he killed that girl.”
Lucas’s ears buzzed, and he tugged at them. Hell, that girl’s murder would scare off the most devoted masochist. Maybe Gwen was telling the truth.
“Throw her in the cell, Kos,” Andre ordered. “And, Lena, child, please do not speak to her. Your compassion is—”
“Yes, I know. It can be a liability.” Her lower lip swallowed up the top one.
Loki stood straight, and the chair scraped against the hard wood floor. “She must be searched for communication devices.”
Like a scene from one of Lucas’s beloved soap operas, everyone stared at one another with insinuating glances.
Finally, Zoey huffed and marched at Gwen. “I guess somebody has to do it.”
The human woman retreated, backing into the door.
Zoey froze, an icy smile stretching across her face. “You know who I am.”
Gwen nodded. “But Ethan didn’t tell me you are a—”
“Vampire?” Zoey dropped her fangs and hissed.
It would have been campy, if Gwen weren’t clearly frightened half-dead. Her gulp was audible. “Yes.”
“Krist. This just keeps getting better.” Kos did not spare a kind look for Gwen as he pointed toward the hallway. “Come on, Zoey.”
“Expect an interrogation, Ms. Evans,” Loki said.
“I’d expect nothing less,” she called out over her shoulder, with Kos and Zoey following close behind.
“And after I question her, my friend—” Loki sidled up to Andre “—I will return home and you can have your estate back.”
“About damn time,” Andre said gruffly, but with the hint of a smile. “But you could at least wait until sundown.”
Lucas might have enjoyed their hyper-macho display, but he couldn’t peel his eyes off of Gwen. He wanted to follow her and try to peer inside her soul. Was she another survivor of the Hunters’ cruelty, or one more of Ethan’s pawns?
Chapter 32
UTA WINCED AS BEL RETRACTED the needle, his little vial of her blood now full. He held it up to the reading light overhead before he dropped it into his pocket. Then he shone a pen light into her eyes.
“Ouch. Stop that.” She swatted it away.
He took out his phone and reached across the armrest dividing their seats. “Fine. Stare into the lens.” The phone made the artificial sound of a camera shutter. She blinked.
He took hold of her wrist and smoothed his thumb over the veins and arteries visible there. His touch awakened her desire, and her skin grew tingly. Breathless, she asked, “What is the point of this examination?”
“I need to establish a baseline before we arrive in Croatia, so I can observe how your homeland affects you.” He flicked the inside of her elbow, seemingly unaffected by the contact. Adolescent mule. He had barricaded his emotions from her with impressive fortitude.
“How unfortunate for you that I cannot urinate in a cup.”
His full, pink-brown lips trembled, betraying a repressed smile. “No need for that.” He dropped her arm and stood. “All done. You should be pleased, Uta. I’ve taken your advice. I’m investigating the osjećaj.”
“You missed my point entirely. You cannot investigate an ephemeral sentiment; it exists beyond the grasp of science.”
The muscles of his jaw flexed, making his face slightly squarer. “If that were true, it could not affect you.”
“What of how it affects you?” She put her hand over his heart.
He lowered his head, and when he spoke, his breath brushed over her knuckles. “I did not choose this.”
“Neither did I. But it is, nevertheless, real. And there is no undoing these mysteries.”
“It was your blood, Uta. It formed some sort of physiological connection. These bonds are not magic or mystical mumbo jumbo. They can be understood. And then maybe we can engineer freedom from them.” With clinical detachment, he gripped her wrist and put it on the arm rest.
She wanted to scream at him and kiss him, but she just watched as he settled into the furthest seat from her on the small jet and opened his laptop. Soon she would renew her efforts to win him, but at the moment his peevish self-involvement rankled. Vampires were vampires, bound by passion, blood, and the past. They could not be freed from the conditions of their existence, just as humans could not be freed from their need for food or oxygen.
If she attempted to explain this to him, she would only succeed in scolding him like a child. Then he would puff up his beautiful chest in a show of male bluster, and she would want him and love him even as she ranted against his selfish, childish—
Was she so impossible to love?
She swallowed the lump of impatient words trying to crawl out of her throat. A tiny airplane cabin with an audience was the last place she wanted to air out the nuances of her emotions. She had no taste for public humiliation.
Twelve hours and four stops to refuel later, the plane landed, skidding to a stop and rolling into the protection of a hangar on the outskirts of Erzurum. Uta stood, stretching. A strange tingle began in the soles of her feet and traveled upward. She stooped to peer out the window, wiggling her toes with the prickly rush of blood to her extremities.
Pouty Bel stirred in his seat.
The curious sensation pulsed through her veins, soothing her frustration and melting it from her muscles. More at ease, she tempered her tone, managing to sound neutral. “What is this place?”
“It’s an old airbase, out of use except for occasional private flights. Ani and Trys arranged for a special reception. There will be someone from customs along with our driver.”
“Can I open the door?” Leo bounced on the balls of his feel like an eager toddler.
A chuckle escaped Uta’s lips, to her own surprise. Something about Leo charmed her, and after half a day of travel, the sweet tang of his potent blood clung to him, pungent. Her mouth watered and she nearly swooned from want, not hunger. Longing. She’d only fed from a Hunter once—Derek—and it had been an ecstasy. The tingle that crept through her veins intensified into a boiling heat, and she gasped.
“Do you feel that too?
” Pedro asked.
“Feel what?” Bel asked.
“It’s weird, like fingers of energy are reaching through my feet, up into my legs.”
“Yes, I feel it.” Uta rotated her ankles. It was a good description of the oddly pleasant pins and needles, enlivening her limbs.
Bel got in her face with the pen light again. “Is this what it feels like to be in Croatia?”
“No. Being home simply feels like being home. Why do you insist on looking at my eyes?”
“Just a data point. I’ll take your blood soon. Yours too, Pedro.”
And then all she could see was the underside of his scruffy chin, because he was staring upward, lost in thought.
She followed Bel down the short stairway of the plane. Shadows filled both ends of the dim hangar and sulfurous yellow light glared from the center of the arching roof. A mustached man in a white shirt leaned against a jeep with his knee bent and one foot on the wheel, smoking a cigarette. He wore a machine-gun slung over his shoulder. Uta cringed. She hated those infernal devices.
A middle-aged human woman in a flowing patterned skirt stood next to a second SUV. Inside it, a driver waited. The woman extended her arms and smiled, showing slightly crooked teeth. “Welcome to Erzurum. I am Damla.”
Bel shook her hand. “Thanks for making the arrangements.”
“It is a pleasure.” She spoke English only slightly more thickly than Uta, with her new-and-improved English accent. “Hasan, do you need to inspect the aircraft?”
The man with the gun took a long look at the group, and Uta’s heart ramped up. Stupid automatic weapons. She could take him, but unless she caught him off guard, she would lose a lot of blood in the process.
“No, you are free to go.” The guard made an arch in the air with the point of his weapon, and Damla handed him a thick fold of bills.
Turning back to Bel, she smiled. “Merely a formality.”
He nodded. “You are sure this madrasa is suitable for my friends?”
“Oh yes. Young Trys explained all your needs. The underground apartment is entirely impervious to light.” She bowed to Uta and Pedro. “I confess, I have always wanted to meet a vampire. In all my years here, I have never encountered one.”
All her years? Uta snorted. Humans were so funny about age. But Damla met her gaze with an unfaltering stare—an unexpectedly old one. If she was the witch’s friend, chances were good she also had magic.
Uta stepped toward her and raised her chin. “What are you?”
“Tsk, tsk. Surely that is a rude question, even among vampires.”
Bel smirked. “Don’t provoke Uta. She is surly.”
“I am a witch.” Damla’s imperfect smile softened Uta. “And while my lifespan is small compared to yours, warrior queen of the Illyrians, I am older than your halfling here by a century, or so.”
“Queen?” Leo whispered.
“Shh. Not now.” Pedro steered the young Hunter into the waiting vehicle.
How did she know that about me? Uta thought. Bel’s people must have briefed her, which meant they trusted Damla, and that was enough to get Uta to climb into the SUV. “What is this madrasa you’re taking us to?”
“Currently it is a museum and closed for renovations, but it was built in the thirteenth century as a monument to the ruling dynasty. Then it served as a seminary and mausoleum.” Damla climbed into the passenger seat and turned.
“Muy bien. House the vampires with the dead people. We do get cold, you know.”
“Ah. What do you call this type in English? A smart-aleck?”
“That’s the polite term,” Bel replied. A wide smile spread across his face—the first Uta had seen since he had bent his head between her legs and taken her to blessed relief. Seeing it again, the sweeping curve of his lush lips—she wanted to kiss it until the vacant sensation in her heart vanished.
Damla turned to Pedro, her eyes twinkling. “I think you will find the accommodations satisfactory. I have often found it necessary to hole up in secret, and the underground apartment is known only to me and my trusted friends. Somehow, it was erased from all the records.” She winked.
“Somehow indeed,” Uta agreed. After centuries of persecution, witches were wily by necessity, and Uta admired their subtlety the way a woman with straight hair admired another’s curls. It was a trait she’d never possessed.
For such a late hour, the streets bustled with commuters. A woman carried a shopping basket, a bundle of leafy greens overflowing its rim. What would it be like to be her—to be on her way home to a family, to prepare a meal, to tuck children into a bed and lie down next to a husband? A satisfactory ordinariness, with no burdens bigger than your own simple life? Uta had never been ordinary, and even as a human she had borne the burdens of her people.
Nestled against the mountains, the city’s buildings alternated in styles between historical and modern. It was a pleasant if unremarkable place, like so many old-world cities where Uta had evacuated vampires under siege by Hunters. Yet Uta had never traveled to eastern Turkey. To her knowledge, there were no vampires living there, which explained why Damla had never met one.
And perhaps why no one had ever described the extremely pleasant vibration zinging in her veins, a mellower version of the first prickly tingles she’d felt on the airplane. She sighed with the bliss of it. Bel’s head whipped to look at her, his eyebrows raised. She plastered on a bland, agreeable smile—practice for when she would get him alone and seduce him with her sweetest, most charming self. His adorable, quizzical expression shot heat right between her legs.
Five minutes later, the driver slid the SUV into a parking spot on the street, across a narrow lawn from the building Damla called the madrasa. Two spires ascended from the façade into the night sky, and on the backside a third, cone-roofed tower stood just as high. Impressive, if not inviting, the medieval stone building loomed large on a small city block.
Pedro grunted. “Home sweet home.” Then he began to unload the bags.
Damla led them through a chain-link fence. Uta could not read Turkish, but guessed easily enough that the neon orange signs indicated the museum was closed. Inside, surrounded by four walls of arches, the courtyard resembled a gothic cloister. The witch led them through a door in the corner. It seemed to open onto a flight of stairs leading up, but by some trick of light or illusion or just plain old magic, a smaller door appeared on the side of the stairs. It revealed a descending ramp, barely wide enough to pass. With his broad shoulders, Bel might have to walk sideways. The suitcases would be a pain in the ass, but not hers. Pedro could deal with them.
Second in line behind Damla, Uta reached the expansive apartment, which spanned the entire footprint of the madrasa above. Dusty leather-bound books lined one wall—the sort of books any respectable witch would have on her shelf. Evenly spaced doors opened in the opposite wall. Presumably this had been a dormitory for the seminary at one time. A formidable oak table occupied the center of the room.
“Wow,” Leo said.
Damla strode across the room and turned on a kettle. The weedy smell of dried plants itched in Uta’s nostrils. Damn witches and their herbal teas and their—she scanned the room looking for the evidence—sweets! Tins of Turkish delight cluttered the table, as did boxes of cookies, and even half-eaten candy bars. Uta much preferred subsisting off of blood than noxious sugar, not that she’d ever tasted candy before.
Bel raised a box and shook it. Nothing rattled inside. “Please tell me you have some people food.”
Damla cackled with apparent disregard for stereotypes. “Yes, yes. The larder is stocked.”
“Good. Then let’s feed the human so that he can feed the vampires.” Pedro shoved Leo toward the pantry door.
“Do you want to see it now?” Damla asked.
Uta glanced around, trying to ascertain to whom the witch spoke. But Damla stared with hazel eyes directly at Uta. “See what?” Uta asked.
“But isn’t that why you’ve come?”
APPARENTLY THIS WITCH had a brain full of rusty nails. Or was it loose screws? “We’ve come to search for an ancient halfling. Didn’t Ani tell you?”
“But I thought…” Even as she trailed off, her pitch rose in a question.
Goose bumps prickled on Uta’s arms.
Bel raised his head from some scientific apparatus he was examining and furrowed his brows. “How do you know about Uta, Damla?”
“Because of the message from Rize, of course.”
Uta found herself sitting in a chair, unsure how she’d arrived there.
Bel gripped her elbow. “Who is Rize?”
“My sire.” She leaned into Bel, allowing herself to rely on his strength and clear thinking.
“Let me show you.” Damla stood, crossing to the bookshelves. She pulled three books down and set them aside, then repeated the motion until she’d fully exposed a large stone engraved with sweeping Arabic calligraphy.
“What does it say?” Bel whispered.
Damla read it aloud: “For my beloved daughter Teuta, Warrior, Queen of the Illyrians.”
Bel whistled.
“Why would he leave this message for me here?” Uta’s mind processed the math quickly. She’d received news of his death in the year 1312, decades after this behemoth of a madrasa was built.
“This is not the message.” Damla’s tone had softened so much, Uta was surprised her sentence didn’t end with a diminutive like child, even though Uta was far, far older than the witch. At the mention of Rize, Uta did regress to childish emotions.
Damla worked her hands around the edge of the stone, her fingers catching on invisible holds. She wriggled out the block, which proved to be mere inches thick. Inside was a bundle wrapped in cloth. Damla handled it with obvious care before laying it in Uta’s outstretched palms.
Uta unfolded the fabric to uncover a single sheet of vellum, covered in Rize’s boxy, compact Latin. Blinking, she called up the long dead language of her conquerors. Her fingers trembled. She didn’t want to crush the ancient document, or sweat on it. Another piece of parchment slipped from her grip and floated to the floor. Bel bent, catching the corner between his big fingers. As he stood, holding it out to her, an image in a familiar style came into focus—a relic depicting the mythic time, like a Hunter artifact, but from Rize’s own codex. In it, a Hunter mother cradled a halfling child. Her vampire mate stood at her side in the iconic style of a Madonna and child, a holy family. Beautiful.
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