jumped up and reached for his clothes, but she held up a hand to stop him.
“It’s still daylight, so we can’t go anywhere. We need to eat something and have a shower,” she said. “We’ll get cleaned up, and then we’ll decide what to do next. It will be dark soon, and we’re going to find the Emperor tonight, or die trying. I’m not willing to let anything or anyone else get in my way.”
He nodded, anger and determination stamped on his face, and held out his hand to help her up. She called to the elements and especially to the water surrounding them, the life-giving water that answered so quickly when Poseidon’s children called.
The spray of water danced over them like a shimmering cloak, and this time Daniel wasn’t startled, but simply stood, holding his arms out to his sides, under the shower. She watched him for a moment and wondered again how this beautiful, deadly man could truly be hers, but then he opened his eyes and smiled at her and she cast aside her hesitation and stepped into his arms.
“There’s soap in the backpack,” he said, running his hands down her arms. He kissed her and then retrieved the soap, and they washed themselves and each other, delighting in the joy of touch, even in the face of what they had to endure. Perhaps especially because of that.
“Affirming life,” she said solemnly. “It does make sense. We cannot bring Brandacea back by sitting and crying, but only by taking action. We will affirm life by finding the Emperor.”
“About that,” he said, pushing the waves of dark hair away from his chiseled face. “I have an idea. Are you up for trying something that might be a little dangerous?”
“More dangerous than escaping stasis, casting a spell on the high prince’s brother, and falling in love with a vampire?”
His lips quirked up in a grin. “Well, when you put it that way . . .”
She sent the spiraling curve of water through their clothing to clean it, and then reversed the magic to remove every drop of water and dry the clothes and their bodies and hair.
“This is a wonderful bit of magic,” Daniel said fervently. “It sounds stupid, in the face of so much tragedy, but I am very happy to clean the sweat and dust off myself.”
“Little things mean so much more when you’re deprived of them,” she said. “For example, I really,
“Granola bars. I agree. Worst food, ever, but very useful at a time like this.”
After they’d dressed and partaken of the bars, apples, and water, she was ready to ask again.
“Try what?”
“I think we should pool our magic. Like we did before, although I didn’t know it at the time, when Justice attacked. This time we do it on purpose, and hopefully it will strengthen both of us.”
Serai tilted her head and watched as he pulled on his boots, admiring the long, muscled length of his leg even as she considered his words. “Do we need to exchange blood again?”
He dropped his boot and stared at her. “No. Don’t even think of it, not ever. If we do a third blood exchange, you could die. Or become a monster. We don’t have any idea what happens to an Atlantean turned vampire. Under no circumstances can I ever, ever do a third blood exchange with you.”
“Then we need to call on the vortex magic,” she said, walking to the front of the cave and into the afternoon sun. “You’re going to have to trust me, because I think we’ll need to be in the sunlight to do it.”
Chapter 30
Colonel Brig St. Ives had been a full-bird colonel in the U.S. Air Force back in the days before vampires and werewolves and all the other beasties from the especially ugly bedtime stories and campfire tales decided to make his life a living hell. Now he was forced to work with a bunch of jarheads, squids, coasties, and FBI suits in a joint paranormal operations task force, and frankly he’d rather have been doing something more fun—anything more fun—like sitting on a beach drinking beer, or, hey, maybe picking porcupine quills out of his ass with a crowbar.
Had to be more fun than this. He hadn’t seen daylight in three days. Missed his wife. Was going to miss the birth of his first grandkid in the next day or so if he didn’t get the fuck out of this hole. So when the call came, he was more relieved than anything else.
“Time to go, sir. We’ve had radio silence from Smithson for seven minutes past his designated check-in time.” The fresh-faced lieutenant standing at attention in front of Brig’s battered steel desk made him tired.
Had he ever been that young?
Surely not.
“Sir?”
“Seven minutes, Lieutenant? He’s a banker, not a marine. Seven minutes just means he spilled his latte on his candyassed suit, or took a shit and lost track of time. We don’t call a go on seven civilian minutes late.”
“Sir, yes sir, but you said—”
“At ease, Lieutenant. I know what I said. I also know that we’re going to wait until sixteen thirty, and then if we don’t hear, we’re going to call him, and then and only then will we proceed with Operation Tombstone.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” The former sailor turned P-Ops flunky saluted sharply and executed a precision turn to leave the office.
Brig just sighed. Operation Tombstone. What the hell these jokers in Washington were thinking, he didn’t know. Just because the banker running this scam on the region’s head vamp happened to live in the same state as the legendary gunfight, didn’t mean it had fuck-all to do with this op. Whatever asswipe had decided the men needed to salute indoors was another paper-pushing moron, too.
But nobody’d asked him. He was just an old pilot, stuck behind a desk, ready to hand off the reins. Ready to meet his grandkid. Ready to make love to his wife again.
He pushed a button on his phone, and the lieutenant’s crisp voice sounded through the line. “Sir?”
“Better get them ready to go, son. Just in case.”
Never hurt to be prepared.
Chapter 31
Daniel had taken a step back before he even realized he’d done it. “Sunlight? Serai, you know that the sun and I don’t exactly get along.”
“Trust me,” she repeated, as if saying it again made it more sensible.
“Look, you know I trust you, but telling the flammable vampire to walk into the sun with you might sound romantic, but it’s actually a little bit nuts.” He leaned down to retrieve his boot and pull it on, and then revised his statement.
“Okay, a lot nuts.”
“Nuts means ill-conceived, correct?” She put her hands on her hips, and he steeled himself to get blasted.
“Ill-conceived is a polite way to put it. Crazy, lunatic, bat-shit insane.”
Serai narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think I appreciate that very much.”
“So what you’re saying is that soul-meld or no soul-meld, I still have the capacity to royally piss you off?” He grinned at her in spite of the crazy-ass conversation. She was just so damn beautiful. Especially with her freshly dry waves of hair curling down to her hips, instead of trapped in that braid.
She pulled out the bit of cord from her pocket and started to tie her hair back, and he groaned. “Okay, okay. I give in. If you promise to leave your hair loose, I’ll take a chance on getting my ass fried.”
She blinked and then stuffed the cord back in her pocket. “You are truly mad, aren’t you? You don’t really trust that I can keep you safe, but you’re willing to risk burning to death over how I wear my hair?”
“It’s a guy thing.”
