'Is he still near?' Sebastian narrowed his eyes, clearly hoping he could face him now.
She shook her head. 'He'll have collected his egg and be long gone. He's done what he set out to do with me, and he's already removed several of the demons and all of the fey from the competition completely. Anyone who faced him is out.'
'How?'
'All we know is that he's trapped them somewhere.'
'What about the young witch?' Sebastian asked. 'Surely MacRieve wouldn't have hurt the girl.'
'He got Mariketa as well, but she managed to curse him first,' Kaderin said. 'He seems to be weakening and not regenerating from injuries.' She jerked her chin in Sebastian's direction. 'Bowen will come after you next. As of yesterday, I was tied for the lead with him—'
'As expected—'
'And also tied with you. He'll attempt to take us out one by one.'
'I look forward to facing him. I'll relish killing him for trapping you here.'
Her answer was another shrug. Sebastian fell silent, and she knew he was waiting for her to ask him to trace her out. She drew in the gravel with the toe of her boot.
'Damn it, ask me to take you from here,' he grated.
'No.'
'You'd rather rot in here?'
'I was making progress,' she said.
'Obstinate female. Is it impossible to admit you're relieved I'm here? That I could save your hide right now?'
'No,' she said simply. And she didn't elaborate, making him look like he wanted to throttle her.
She had to assume Bowen had collected his prize in the next ravine over, but Cindey could still be beaten. If Kaderin got out of here soon.
'Very well, I'll leave you to your progress.' He turned to trace, and she hurried forward, touching his arm.
'Look, I don't want to be traced to your backyard. The prize must be in the next cavern system over, and it's just across a ravine.' She crossed to the rocks, and pushed with frustration. 'I need to be directly on the other side of these, and I know you can't trace there.'
'Because you assume I haven't been there before?'
She piped her lip and blew a curl out of her eyes. 'Do you often visit Las Quijadas, Sebastian?' At his blank look, she added, 'Argentina.'
'No, I can't trace there. But... ' He studied the boulders, then pushed against one until it began to move.
When she gasped, he stopped. 'Seems I could free you, after all.'
She gave him a tentative touch on his chest. 'What would it take to get you to finish moving those?'
'What are you offering?' he asked, his voice rougher.
'Money? Would you take money to push these free?'
'I've plenty of my own. More than enough for both of us.'
She scowled at that. 'What do you want, then?'
'I want'—he ran his hand over his face—'to... touch you. Not here, but tonight—'
'Not going to happen.' She crossed her arms over her chest, and his gaze landed on her damp cleavage. As he had that night on the coast, he looked like he was considering throwing her over his shoulder and tracing her back to his bed. 'I do so wish my breasts would stop staring at your eyes.'
His head jerked up, and he had to clear his throat to rasp, 'Kiss me. Kiss me, and I'll free you.'
'The last time that happened you bit me, and you could do it again.' Kissing Sebastian always seemed to lead to more. Last time, it had led to his taking her blood.
And possibly her memories.
'I never bit you. I grazed your skin. Accidentally.'
'Then tell me you haven't contemplated doing it again.'
'I'—he exhaled heavily—'cannot. The pleasure was too intense to ignore.'
She was shocked by his honesty and didn't bother disguising that fact. 'Then I'm betting in the same situation it would happen again.'
'I would vow not to.'
'Unless, of course, it happened'—she curled her fingers into air quotes—'accidentally. Since I can eventually dig my way free, that kiss doesn't seem worth the risk.'
He nodded, resigned. 'Very well. We can sit here till we fossilize. I can be as stubborn as you, Bride.'
'So, you're to wait this out with me?' she asked. 'Won't you have a problem with losing the prize?'
'I have no interest in winning this competition.'
'I knew you entered just so I couldn't kill you.'
'You couldn't kill me before I entered. Do you not wonder why you've destroyed so many of my kind before me and then were unable to swing your sword to my neck?'
'I don't know why that happened,' she admitted. 'But I've stopped questioning it.'
'Why won't you let me win this competition for you? That was the only reason I entered.'
'There's no one you would want to save from the past, no loved one?' she asked, noting that a shadow passed over his eyes. Who had he lost? 'A deceased wife, perhaps?'
'You are well aware that I don't believe this key will work.'
He hadn't answered her question. He's been married? 'Why are you so certain?'
'Time travel is impossible,' he answered in a tone that held zero doubt.
And the wife? 'I bet you believed vampirism was impossible, too, till you woke with a marked hankering for blood.'
'No, my culture was superstitious to the core. Even with my science background, belief came to me more easily than I would have thought. Besides, it isn't impossible according to the laws of nature.'
And what about the wife?
'Anyway, I was never married.'
She marveled that he hadn't been—and that she was somehow pleased by this fact. 'At your age?' she asked, taking a seat. 'You must have been thirty.'
'Thirty-one. But I'd lived on a battlefront since I was nineteen. There was no way for me to have a woman for my own.'
'But now you feel you're ready?'
As if giving her a vow, he met her eyes when he rumbled the word: 'Yes.' Her toes curled in her climbing shoes.
'And what about you, Kaderin? Will you finally tell me why you are bent on winning this?' He looked away when he asked, 'Do you seek to retrieve a husband?'
When she didn't answer, he turned back.
After a moment, she grudgingly shook her head. 'I was never wed.' She would never tell him her real motivation—there was no reason to, even if she had the inclination—but she also wouldn't let him think she fought this hard for a lost husband or lover. 'My covens and the Furies have done me a great honor in choosing me for this contest. I won't fail them.' She shrugged and added honestly, 'And I simply want to defeat everyone.'
'So, all of this is about pride and ego?'
She made her tone bored when she asked, 'Aren't those good enough reasons?'
'I don't believe so. There's more to life than winning this competition.'
'I agree. There's also killing vampires. Those two things give my life purpose.'
He said nothing in response to her comment, just gave her an inscrutable look. She knew he disapproved of her priorities and the way she lived her life, but at that look, she began to suspect he also felt sorry for her. She tilted her head. 'Tell me, then, how would you envision our lives together?'
'We could see the world. Rebuild the castle, start a family.'
A family? If she and Sebastian had children, they could be like her little half-vampire niece, Emmaline. Kaderin inwardly shook herself. 'I live in New Orleans, I compete, and I kill vampires. You'd expect me to give up
