René’s lip curled just slightly. “You have different memories than I do.”
“Clearly. The funny thing is” —he addressed himself to Kezia— “René always seemed to be a step behind me, even when I was mortal. Can you imagine how far behind he’ll be now that I’m a vampire?”
Kezia’s mouth curled into a smile. “You like playing with fire, young Vecchio?”
Ben rose and stepped close to both of them. “Fire doesn’t concern me. Just makes me think of home.”
“Hmmm.” Kezia looked him up and down appreciatively. “So I see.”
He felt her approaching and knew instinctively what she would do. Tenzin flew toward them and landed on Ben’s back, curling her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist possessively.
Was she making it look like she was claiming territory? Yes. Did Ben mind?
Not… really?
It was a power play, but a good one. Tenzin might be one of the suspects on Radu’s list, but Ben wasn’t willing for any adversary to see them as divided. They had their problems, but those were no one else’s business.
He ran a hand from Tenzin’s ankle up to her knee. “Hey, Tenzin. How’d you sleep today?”
“Metaphorically?”
“Of course.”
“Very well, thank you.” Tenzin laid her cheek against Ben’s neck. “Hello, René. Hello, Kezia.”
“Tenzin.” René looked slightly ill, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off Tenzin. His lips were flushed. It was a weird combination.
“My dear Tenzin.” Kezia greeted her with a smile. “I am so glad you accepted my invitation.”
“I was surprised to receive it, but there was no way I would turn it down. I wouldn’t want to miss a minute of this,” she said. “I’m just glad Radu invited Ben too.”
Radu rose. “Forgive me for leaving this delightful group, but I must attend to other guests.”
“Cool.” Ben’s fingers were running across Tenzin’s ankle. “We’ll catch up later.”
“Let me know if you have any further questions about your accommodations.”
“You bet.” Ben wasn’t looking at Tenzin, but every cell in his body was tuned to hers. “So René—”
“I heard so many rumors about your adventures in China,” René said. “I imagine only half of them could be true.”
“Did you hear that Ben found the Laylat al Hisab at the bottom of the ocean,” Tenzin asked, “where it had lain for a thousand years? But he found it completely intact, stored in the glass vessels created by Harun the sword master, along with countless other gold treasures valued at many millions of dollars.”
René pressed his lips together.
“Because that happened,” Tenzin said, playing with a curl of Ben’s hair. “It was fun.”
Ben turned to her. “Did you want to make that call at my place?”
“Yes.”
Ben turned to Kezia and René. “You’ll have to excuse us. Personal business.”
Kezia smiled. “Of course. I’ll just let my imagination run wild until René fills me in on all the details.” Her eyes swept up and down Ben’s body one more time before she glanced at Tenzin, smiled with a hint of fang, and turned back to the fire.
Ben gave René a flippant wave and turned toward his caravan. He said nothing more until he reached the bus. He kept Tenzin on his back until he walked inside and shut the door. “Okay, you can get down now.”
Tenzin floated off his back and landed in front of him. “Kezia would like to have sex with both of us. Just in case you didn’t understand what that look was about.”
“Yeah, I got it.” It was pretty obvious. “Just not into it.”
Tenzin nodded. “I will add that to the previous parameters.”
“This is not…” He closed his eyes and willed the erection away. “Can we not start a conversation about this when we’re here to video call my baby sister?”
“That’s fine,” Tenzin said. “We can talk about it later.”
“Or never. That’s okay too.”
She patted his cheek. “I don’t know what René was talking about. You have a wonderful sense of humor, Benjamin.”
24
“So then!” Sadia leaned on the desk and kicked her legs up behind her. “Kara and Owen were the last ones, and they jumped in the pool and went all the way to the bottom!”
“Really?” Ben shook his head. “That’s really dangerous.”
“I know!” Sadia’s face was glowing as she told them about her swimming party. “All the way in the deep end. That’s where Dema threw the hoops.”
Tenzin said, “The deep end is very deep.”
“I know! But Kara grabbed the red and the yellow ones—those were her colors—and she swam all the way up and she popped up” —Sadia jumped up— “and then swam to the steps, and that’s how she won the race.”
Tenzin asked, “What did she win? What was the prize?”
Sadia lifted her shoulders. “We didn’t have a prize. We were just racing.”
Tenzin frowned. “No prize?”
“That’s cool.” Ben squeezed Tenzin’s knee. No doubt the idea of a competition without something shiny at the end was messing with her brain. “You don’t need a prize. Sometimes racing is just for fun, right?”
“Yeah.” Sadia was bouncing again. “And on the trampoline, I totally won.”
“Of course you did,” Tenzin said. “You are superior to other human children.”
“But I came in last on the bikes since I just got mine and I don’t have practice like my friends. And that’s why I didn’t win in the diving race.”
Tenzin opened her mouth, but Ben jumped in. “Which is fine, because you’re going to ride your bike a lot, right? With Zain and Dema? So you can get better on your bike and have more fun.”
Sadia nodded. “And pretty soon I’m not even going to need the extra wheels anymore and Baba can take them off and then I’ll go” —she pointed her fingers into an arrow and zoomed them across the screen— “superfast!”
Tenzin turned to Ben. “So she is not holding a grudge against her playmates for besting her in the race?”
Ben shook his head. “Everyone is good at different things, Tenzin.”
Tenzin pursed her lips, and Ben could practically read her thoughts. What was the point of competing
