members of his blood pride to dispose of. Sadly, necessity made strange crime-committing fellows.
“Atlantis, you idiot.”
Smithson started laughing. “So it’s a fairy tale. Great. You’re basing our hope of funding for the consortium’s initial investment on Atlantis? Why not just ask Santa Claus for the money?”
“Atlantis most definitely existed and still does. From what I hear, it’s nearly ready to take its place in the world again, if you and your kind don’t bomb it back to the deep when it rises. But those are problems for another day. For now, we feed our witch and her son and let them rest, because this evening we’re going out to the canyons and caves to see what we can find when fewer prying eyes will be around.”
Smithson’s expression still said he didn’t really believe any of it, but just then Ian, having settled his mother on the bench inside the interrogation room, walked over to the file cabinet and pulled open the drawer which the gem had pointed out just minutes before.
“Holy crap, Mom! There’s a freaking fortune in here!”
“Don’t say holy crap, Ian,” Ivy said tiredly, not even bothering to open her eyes. She’d wiped the blood off her upper lip, Nicholas saw, but she looked pale enough to faint at any moment. Nearly unconscious and clearly in pain, but still mother enough to chastise her son for bad language. As Nicholas watched the lovely witch, he felt something in his chest warm in a way he hadn’t felt for more than three hundred years, and he flinched away from the window.
He’d been wrong. There was danger here, after all. He watched her a moment longer and then turned to the banker.
“Bring me the man who hurt that boy. I want to have a word or two with him over breakfast.”
He laughed, fangs fully descended, as the banker scurried from the room. Nicholas was in a wonderful mood, and why not? The witch would find the gem, the consortium was on track, and to top it all off, the blood of a man who had hurt a child would taste so much better than scrambled eggs. He glanced through the one-way glass again, his gaze returning to the lovely witch and her son.
Yes. So much better than eggs.
Chapter 15
“Are you sure this is right?” Daniel looked around, his night vision excellent, and wondered if Serai’s exhaustion was playing tricks upon her connection with the Emperor. She’d fallen back into a deep sleep at the hotel after their conversation about plans, not even waking when Melody’s friends brought the gear. Apparently the events of the day and night before and the strain from the Emperor’s fluctuations had weakened her far beyond what she’d wanted to admit. He’d spent a restless day trying to sleep, listen for danger, and keep from touching her. Or biting her. Or fucking her.
Or all three at once.
He’d also had three cold showers and a brief period around noon where he feared he was descending into lunacy. Oh, yeah, it had been a hell of a day. And now his fragile, darling, innocent sex kitten of a princess was telling him to shut up.
“Yes, as I said the other five times, Daniel. Please be quiet now, so I can try to sense the Emperor again.” She leaned against a tree and looked up into the sky. “Look. It’s Draco, curled around the Little Dipper. Was that one of your names?”
“Honey, there’s nothing little about my dipper.”
She rolled her eyes, but at least he’d made her smile. It lightened the shadows in her eyes, if only for a moment. “No, Draco. Or Drakos.”
“How could you know that?”
“Oh the attendants in the temple loved to gossip, and the exploits of Conlan and his warriors were constant fodder. I heard much of their vampire ally Drakos. A vampire who was a friend to the high prince’s brother was very gossip-worthy. It never occurred to me that Drakos could be . . .” she finished in a strained voice.
“I’ve had many names over the years,” he said, shrugging the backpack to a more comfortable position. “Something to pass the time. Daniel was not always a name that fit in where I happened to be.”
“What are some of the others?”
He breathed deep of the pine-drenched desert night air and caught the slightest scent of sea salt and woman.
He shook his head. She was his only in his dreams. The beauty never ended up with the beast, despite brief moments of pleasure and the beast’s futile wishes.
“Names? Or are you ignoring me on purpose?” she asked teasingly.
“They almost always began with the same letter, for ease of remembering. Drakos, Demetrios. Lately, Devon. Once, for a memorable period, D’Artagnan. Generally back to Daniel whenever possible.”
“Because it’s your real name.”
“Yes, but that’s not the reason. I kept coming back to Daniel because it was the name you’d called me,” he said softly, but he knew by her indrawn breath that she’d heard him.
“I . . . Wait. Daniel, I can feel it. The Emperor. It’s closer than ever before, and it’s moving.” She started running forward and he caught her arm.
“No. Let’s not charge headlong into danger, okay? It’s safe to bet that whoever has the gem is not going to want to give it up and is almost certainly not after it for innocent reasons. It has a lot of power, which tends to draw the attention of those who want to accumulate a lot of power. These are rarely the nicest people you might want to meet.”
She turned toward him, and he tried not to think about touching the curve of her neck, or the delightful curve where her hip met her waist. Tried not to think about unbraiding her hair and wrapping his hands in fistfuls of those lush curls.
“Daniel. You’re looking at me the way I looked at that chocolate cake,” she murmured. “I confess I like it, but now isn’t the best time.”
He leaned down and stole a single kiss. It would have to tide him over. “You’re right, of course. Now tell me about what you feel, and how close you think the Emperor is to where we are now.”
“It’s north—no, west of here. Where is that?”
“It’s the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness area,” Daniel said grimly. “Of course they couldn’t be at a coffee shop. Well, enough of this. We can’t do much with the car Melody’s friends brought us, since the direction you’re sensing is pure hiking country, but we’re certainly not hiking, in spite of these fancy clothes and boots. You’re wasting energy you don’t need to expend, especially when you’re traveling with someone who can fly.”
“No!” She backed away from him, violently shaking her head back and forth. “I can’t.”
“I’ll keep you safe. It’s just a matter of closing your eyes if you feel dizzy.” He knew it was easier to show her, so he swept her into his arms and launched into the air. He made it about ten feet above the ground before she started to scream.
In his ear.
He was so startled he nearly lost his grip on her waist, and she slipped a little and then started screaming even louder. Then her entire body started shaking and spasming in his arms, and he headed back for the ground, fast. When he landed and her feet were firmly on the ground, though, the screaming didn’t stop. If anything, it intensified in volume, and she kept shaking so hard he was afraid she was having a seizure.
“Serai, please, tell me what to do. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, please help me. Damn it, I don’t know what to do here,” he said, holding her tightly to try to calm the spasms.
Slowly—ever so slowly—the shaking subsided. She stopped screaming and began sobbing, loud, hoarse sobs that were almost as painful to him as they must be to her. She pulled away from him and sank to the ground, still sobbing as if her heart would break any minute.
“Delia. Oh, no, poor Delia, she was the youngest of us. All that lovely golden hair, oh no, oh no, oh no,” she
