Ben opened the bottle of a blood-wine in the center of the table. “It’s not a bad way to live. Join me in a drink?”
Radu held out an empty glass. “Happily. But you are incorrect. It is not just ‘not bad,’ it is the most excellent way to live.” He looked around the forest. “Among your friends and family, new earth under your feet every night. Humans weren’t meant to be so settled.”
“You’re giving away your element, Radu. I’m sure earth vampires would disagree.”
Radu’s eyes twinkled. “Indeed I am. Is it so obvious?”
“To one of the same element? Yes. Maybe not to others.”
Radu tapped his temple. “Ah, but you’re a clever man.”
“I’d better be.” Ben’s eyes swept the gathering, examining the immortals and humans he saw. Though the tables were relatively close together, the music prevented any eavesdropping, which was probably part of the reason they played it.
The first person to catch Ben’s eye was a waif-thin blond vampire with round blue eyes and a worried expression.
“That is Tatyana.” Radu caught the direction of his gaze. “The newborn who’s on the run from Oleg.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t need to.” Radu smiled. “I like her. She has a very Russian sense of humor.”
“Hmm.” Ben saw an older man with a pocked face and olive-brown skin sitting on his own. More correctly, the man was sitting in an isolated pocket of introversion while humans and vampires tried to tempt him with something he ignored. “Let me guess,” Ben said. “Darius?”
“Yes, that is Darius.”
“If these vampires are the ones you’ve narrowed down, how did you get them all here?”
“I sent them an invitation.”
Ben blinked. “And they just arrived?”
“I made excuses of course.” His eyes shifted. “Now, Fynn is an interesting case.”
“The Nazi vampire?” Ben didn’t know if he was guilty of the goblet theft, but everything about the man told Ben he was scum.
He was wearing a suit the color of oatmeal in the middle of the forest and flicking the servers away from him with a casual disregard that Ben found enraging.
“Please tell me he’s paying a lot of money,” Ben muttered.
“I cannot tell you exact details, but he’s paying a substantial amount.” The corner of Radu’s mouth turned up.
“Good.” Ben liked Radu more for the half smile. It told him Radu was milking Fynn, and that made him happy. “The woman near Tatyana?”
“Madina,” Radu said. “Very smart. Very opportunistic. She was getting a little too imperialistic according to rumors, so Arosh asked her to leave Samarkand.”
“He asked her?”
“He asked her… forcefully. I believe she accepted my invitation so quickly because the offer of safe haven was appealing.”
“Good.” This was the kind of information he needed more of. “Why would she steal the goblet?”
“I have two theories: pure greed or leverage.”
“Greed is greed, but leverage?” Ben looked at Radu. “What does she want from you?”
“Safe haven for now, and later? Possibly a new community to rule? She comes from nomads too. I don’t think being terrin of the Poshani would be undesirable to her.”
“If she wanted to use the goblet as leverage, wouldn’t she have approached you by now?”
“She has approached me.”
“With the goblet?” Why am I here then?
“No, with sex. She made a sexual advance toward me.”
Thanks for the info? “Which has what to do with the goblet?”
“I don’t know.” He narrowed his eyes. “But she is an excellent lover. Perhaps she means to entrap me.”
“That’s…” Too much information? Unlikely? Unfortunately, more than one vampire considered sex just another weapon in the immortal arsenal. And most of them were very good at it.
Tenzin was good at it.
“I think” —Ben cleared his throat— “that if she had the goblet and wanted to use it in some kind of bargain, she would’ve made her hand a bit easier to read.”
“Perhaps,” Radu said. “You suspect René DuPont. Why?”
Ben wanted to swallow his exclamation from the day before. “I only know he’s a skilled thief. But he also takes contracts for others. If René took the goblet, I suspect he’s already sold it or handed it over to a buyer and the goblet is probably long gone.”
A flicker of anger burned in Radu’s eyes. “It is far more than a goblet.”
“To you,” Ben said, “yes. But to another, it’s a priceless artifact.” He saw the object of their conversation lounging on a cushion near the bonfire with a slim, dark-haired woman Ben recognized. “Your sister Kezia.”
Radu glanced at René and Kezia. “What about her?”
“She’s clearly friendly with René. Could her loyalties—?”
“Not even a sliver of a chance.” Radu was clearly confident. “She would never betray the Poshani.”
“I see.” Nevertheless, Ben watched Kezia and René, watched them flirting and playing coy with each other, watched them whisper and laugh.
After a minute’s scrutiny, René glanced up and saw Ben watching him.
“Vecchio!” The French thief broke into a wide smile. “Fancy meeting you here.” He leapt to his feet. “And all grown up too.”
René sauntered over to Ben and Radu’s table.
“Hello, René.” Ben desperately wanted René to have stolen the goblet, but he had a feeling that Tenzin was right this time. René DuPont had the look of a man without a care in the world. He didn’t even appear to be scheming.
It made his face look all wrong somehow.
“I see you recovered from that time Tenzin threw you off a building,” Ben said.
“And I see you’ve shed that irritating mortality, yet kept the same lack of humor.” René cocked his head. “Such a disappointment.”
“Must be the title of your sex tape,” Ben muttered.
All the vampires looked confused, but a familiar laugh cackled from the trees.
René lifted an eyebrow. “If Vecchio is here, he must be following Tenzin.” He slipped an arm around Kezia’s waist. “You know Tenzin, don’t you, chérie?”
Kezia said, “Of course I do.”
“The boy follows her like a faithful puppy. It’s quite adorable.”
“Hey, René,” Ben said.
“Yes, Vecchio?”
“Remember the times I beat
