'Sebastian, have you ever seen a turned vampire? If you had, you would know why I would do just about anything not to wake up to one at sunset because you went out and got frisky.'
'I would never be unfaithful to you,' he said, then felt compelled to tell her, 'And I have seen them. Through your dreams.'
She clearly didn't like to be reminded of that and looked as if she barely held on to her patience.
'And not all vampires turn. My brother didn't and he drinks from the flesh.'
Her eyes widened. 'That's right. Tapping Myst, is he, then? So much for coven secrets.'
'He would never betray her.' For all of Nikolai's faults, he was as loyal as men came.
'Even if you would never turn, if I accepted you, and we were together, there are only two possible outcomes for our future. One, I leave behind my family. Or two, they kill you. Period. That is our future.'
'But my brother and Myst—'
'Will be running for their lives when our queen returns.'
'Furie?'
'Let me guess. You've seen her, too?'
'I have.' He felt his face grow cold. 'She broke your goddamned arm.'
'So, you've seen that she's a fearsome being.'
'I don't fear her, and I would always protect you.'
'You should fear her,' Kaderin said, exasperated. 'All vampires should. The Horde captured her and chained her to the bottom of the ocean for the last fifty years. For fifty years she's drowned repeatedly, every few minutes, only to have her immortality revive her, and no one could find her. But now we're getting close, and when she rises, she won't differentiate between the two armies of vampires. There'll be no reasoning with her. Because she wasn't exactly levelheaded before dying the last four million plus times.'
'We'll deal with that when the time comes.'
'Just stop. Do you want to know what the second of the three major turnoffs is? It's pressure. I don't respond well to pressure.' She snatched up her bag and tossed the strap over her shoulder.
'Wait, before you go.' He traced to her flat, carefully collected the egg from the drawer he'd stowed it in, then traced back. 'Here.'
'Of course.' She tucked her hair behind her ear, then reached for it. 'I was just about to ask for this.'
'No, you weren't,' he said, and somehow knew he was right.
'Was too.' She held the egg up, and when it disappeared, the scents from far away came once more. 'I was, because I was curious if you had killed the other two basilisks or not.'
Can't lie. Even though he knew she'd view him as weak. He ran his palm over the back of his neck and averted his face. 'I had to kill one of them. I decided... not to with the smallest basilisk.'
Of all the reactions he might have expected, her sound of frustration and her forefinger pointed at him weren't among them.
'Of course, you did,' she said in a disgusted tone. 'Stay, leave, do as you will, but I've work to do.'
He was growing angry. Mercy had its place. 'Would you prefer that I had killed them both?'
Forefinger still out like a sword, she sputtered, 'No! But you just had to turn out to be all noble and... and understanding. And you are such a... a... vampire!' She frowned, then seemed to seize on a thought. 'And you could have told me who you are!'
Where in the hell had that come from? 'I told you my name that first morning.'
'But you didn't tell me who you were!'
He drew back his head, utterly baffled, as she stormed from the room into the sunlit main cabin.
She was leaving, and he couldn't go with her, even though everything in him wanted to. And because of the sun, he couldn't even watch her walk away.
When she was gone, he felt as if he were missing some part of himself. Something intrinsic and critical.
He felt caged, frustrated. He punched the wall of the plane, breaking an interior panel. Goddamn it, I want to follow where she goes.
Gobi Desert, Africa
Day 11
Prize: A collection of water from the Fountain of
Youth, infinite in number, worth seven points
Twenty miles she'd covered before finding the oasis with the Fountain of Youth. She'd scooped up its magical waters in an empty, dented Aquafina bottle and raised it over her heart in offering.
Everyone in the Lore knew that the Fountain moved from desert to desert all over the world. It was not, for instance, located in the swamps of the panhandle of Florida. Conquistadors and their madcap ideas. How her sisters had chortled at the time.
Today she was allowing herself a more leisurely pace back, listening to Regin's iPod, which she'd left on the plane for Kaderin. The trek across the sand was uncomfortable enough without running. The sun scorched the desert like those food-heating lamps, keeping the area at a constant one hundred thirty degrees Fahrenheit. It seemed as if the sand were in its death throes, hissing at the sun.
Still, all in all, it was a good day. She was, for example, still alive.
She'd called Nïx back this morning from the car as she'd set out, hoping to catch her in a calmer frame of mind and confirm what she'd said. But, as was often the case, Nïx hadn't been lucid. She'd spoken frantically about 'paper animal shapes all in a row' and 'crass how-to books about the Lore.' Nïx seemed to have no memory of her prediction. Kaderin provided the obligatory comments: 'Is that so?' 'How nice.' 'Sweet, let me talk to whoever is closest to you.'
Even with this premonition hanging over her, Kaderin couldn't be depressed. Last night, she'd slept so perfectly, so soundly in Sebastian's warm arms, without a single nightmare. Not to mention the fact that she'd been thoroughly pleasured by him.
Besides, what else could one do with the knowledge of imminent death?
Yes, pleasured by a vampire. A gentleman warrior vampire who'd demonstrated enough strength to snap her foes like twigs and the ferocity on tap to unleash hell on them. And yet he possessed the understanding to spare a young dragon.
She'd left him miserable over the sheer fact that they would be parted. And probably still scratching his head at her inane babbling. Which satisfied her.
As she crested another dune, she wondered if it was possible that she was falling for Sebastian. If so, the timing was pitiful. Finally to find a man she could potentially care for, and she could never have a future with him.
If she didn't die, and if she saved her sisters, she would change history—her history. She would never have been withering away in her cold, emotionless existence and never would have readily traveled to an obscure Russian castle to kill a single vampire. And somehow she knew she never would meet him in any reality, not before he finally died in whatever way.
One could go crazy trying to figure it all out.
So she wouldn't try. Instead she'd replay scenes from the night before—
Suddenly, she had the vaguest sense of his traced presence behind her. A second later: 'Bloody hell.' Then he was gone.
He never saw her grin.
28
Medellin, Colombia
Day 17
Prize: One golden and opal ring, first forged in
Mesopotamia, worth twelve points
Tonight, Kaderin's task was to get close enough to Rodrigo Gamboa, a Colombian drug lord guarded more closely than royalty, to acquire a ring, which never truly belonged to him.
