Blood Entangled (8 page)

“Chill out, man. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He wasn’t. He just hadn’t figured out how to get rid of the guy without having him come back with the cops. Next time he carjacked somebody, he’d think that part through better.

The abandoned garage was hot, but he couldn’t risk opening a door. There was a toilet which didn’t flush, making for a hell of a ripe stink. His mind bounced from idea to idea at the same speed he opened and closed windows on his computer, unable to focus on a game, an email, or a video for long. Unable to think straight at all, really, like he’d had a bunch of those super caffeinated sodas. Only, he hadn’t had one of those things.

A doubt whispered in his ear that he might be in over his head.

He forwarded the email to Ethan Bennett with a note explaining he’d hacked Marasović’s email. His finger hovered over the send button, and then he recalled Bennett’s words to the Hunters when Stephen Bennett had been killed. Ethan had been all fake-sad about his dad dying, and he promised to find all the deep, dark Hunter secrets before he took down Marasović himself.

Dude thought he was Jesus H. Christ for Hunters. Hey, maybe that’s what the “H” stood for. He’d always wondered. Leo opened another window to Google it, and his email to Bennett got buried on the screen.

Ethan leaned his hip against the doorframe, interested in observing Gwen’s reaction to the basement of his family home.

She scanned the room, rubbing her elfin chin. “Who are you?”

He had expected the question. Years ago, his father had the lower level equipped to preserve Hunter artifacts in museum-like conditions with temperature and humidity controls, as well as airtight cases for the objects that required them. Low filtered lights prevented damage to the ancient heirlooms.

“What do you mean?” Ethan plastered a show of puzzlement on his face. Very few people had private facilities like this, and especially not beneath an unassuming house in the Boston suburbs.

“Give me a break, Edwin.” Her accent added a certain charm to the colloquialism.

His real name formed on his lips, but he swallowed it. That kind of slip could ruin the best-laid plans.

Still, the more of the truth he told her, the more useful she would be. He rolled up his cuffs, settling in for a night of research. “My family is part of a Welsh tribe that has preserved its traditions and artifacts for centuries. I believe we originated somewhere in Central Asia and migrated across Europe.”

“Your name isn’t Welsh.”

“I’m descended from the Welsh community, and one in Eastern Europe.”

She flitted around the basement, looking inside each display case. Her focus was so intense that each time she bent over a glass cabinet, he longed to see inside it too. But watching her petite frame bend over the cases was also interesting. The climate control fan hummed in the otherwise silent room. She didn’t speak for ten minutes, and he was startled when her voice sounded over the droning air conditioner.

“Let me see this.” She pointed at a bronze brooch.

He held a ring of small keys, each one opening a different case. It had been his father’s idea of security. Ethan had pointed out that if all the keys were on the same ring, it wasn’t secure, just inconvenient. Yes, well—there was a reason his father was dead and he wasn’t. He would call the locksmith in the morning.

He opened the rear panel of the case. Tissue in hand, she reached inside to grasp the object. She held the brooch on her open palm and they bent their heads together to peer at it. For the life of him, he could not figure out why she had selected it from all the other objects. It was round and bronze, with a bull’s-eye pattern surrounded by a silver circlet, braided in a style similar to her ring.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A brooch.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “I’ve always believed this piece to be unremarkable.”

“Logical, but mistaken. You think your tribe migrated to the British Isles from Central Asia. When do you think this migration occurred?”

“Early Iron age. The third or fourth century before Christ.”

“There are many improbable things about that hypothesis, but the codex makes me curious and this brooch supports your theory. It’s a
nazar
.”

He rifled through his mind until he located the definition. “A charm for warding off the evil eye? Don’t those have blue irises?”

“Yes, except in your codex, there are people with golden eyes. This is a golden-eyed
nazar
. I’d place its origin farther west, in Turkey.”

“Are you certain?”

“No.” She didn’t elaborate, but continued to examine the artifact. Then she set it on top of the case and resumed her walk around the room. Minutes passed before she spoke again. “I am going to tell you something about the codex, in exchange for your honest answer to the following question. Do we have a deal?”

So this was how it would be between them—
quid pro quo,
all the way. Of course, there were other means to get information from her. He was skilled in them, and ever since Pedro had escaped, he had itched for another chance to use the sharp objects in his little black bag. But he could not extract information she did not yet have, which meant he would have to wait for her to study his Hunter relics and feed her the history she wanted.

“Obviously, I can’t agree until I know the question.”

“Fair enough.” She trailed her hand along the cases, sauntering toward him. Much too close for his comfort, she stopped and tilted her face up. “What color are your eyes?”

He relaxed his cheeks and mouth to block an expression of surprise. “What a strange question. You can see for yourself that they are brown.”

How the hell had she guessed? He routinely hid his yellow eyes behind contact lenses. Disguised as Lovac, his were brown and he wore glasses.

He aimed for a casual tone. In order to convey emotion, he always had to determine the sentiment before he spoke. “What does my eye color have to do with anything?”

“Your codex is called,
The Book of the Day
.”

That got his attention. A title. “Tell me more.”

“That’s all you get.”

“Our agreement was that you would share your translation when you saw my artifacts.”

“I’ve changed my mind. There’s something you’re not telling me, and the translation is my leverage. Don’t bother looking for it, by the way. It’s not on my computer or written down anywhere in my belongings.” She tapped her temple with her index finger.

“I wouldn’t dream of intruding on your privacy.”

Damn, she was either incredibly suspicious or she saw right through him. Being seen was a curious prospect—highly unlikely, but strangely appealing.

“Of course you wouldn’t intrude. I’m simply taking every precaution. Will you show me to where I’ll be staying?”

“Certainly. Are you hungry? I can order in dinner.”

“Please. Chinese?”

“Fine. I know a decent place. What dishes do you like?”

“Oh, I’ll eat anything. The spicier the better.” She prattled off the names of her favorite dishes, and he struggled to understand them with her lilting accent.

Charming that she could switch from shrewd to chatty on a dime. She was more and more intriguing. Only Zoey had been more of an enigma.

“I just need to phone my brother, then I’ll place the order.”

Lucas Bennett awoke with a heart-pounding jolt. Where was he?

His arms slid across soft sheets, good cotton with a four-figure thread count. Bare ivory walls begged for adornment behind an antique desk with a Tiffany lamp. The bed’s rustic and clunky frame was right out of the Restoration Hardware catalog, if they had a Croatian edition.

Right. After almost a week staying at the Kaštel Estate Winery, it was still a shock to wake up there. Although he wasn’t technically a prisoner, the charming place had become his holding cell. The vampires didn’t trust him, and he didn’t know what to do with himself since he’d disavowed the Hunters. Only those same damn Hunters knew what to do with him—they wanted him dead.

A tangle of feelings about Pedro sat heavy in his gut, making him queasy and lethargic. Sympathy, guilt, sorrow, bone deep attraction—he could pick at the knot all day long and fail to unravel one thread. He hadn’t even seen the guy for a week—seven days spent failing to cool his heels. It was a shitty existence, living out of a duffel bag, and only leaving his room to eat. But it wasn’t like he had anything else to do, or any place else to be. Not unless he had a death wish.

Maras’s household treated him with surprising kindness. Rescuing Pedro had made his Hunter origins forgivable. Thing was, a week in a vampire household had been a course in desensitization therapy. With all the mundane details, the humanity of everyone at Kaštel, both human and vampire, he’d found he had no hate left for the creatures. In fact, he missed Pedro something wicked…Pedro, who surely hated him…

His absence was proof.

The muffled ring of his phone sounded, and he followed it to a pair of pants, vibrating where they hung over the desk chair. An unctuous feeling slithered over his skin even before he looked at the screen. The name on the phone confirmed his intuition—Ethan. He hadn’t spoken to his brother since he knocked him unconscious to rescue Pedro from Ethan’s fun-with-tools torture session. Well, this should be interesting.

He answered the call.

“Lucas,” Ethan said.

“Don’t worry. I know the consequences for what I did. We have nothing to talk about.”

“Is he alive?”

“What?”

“Your friend, Pedro—is he alive?”

Lucas hesitated.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes. Marasović turned him, then?”

“No, he didn’t. He’s here recovering. The gunshot wound wasn’t bad. His feet are worse.”

“You’ve never been able to deceive me. Has he fed from you?”

This time, Lucas was ready with the lie. “Hell no. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Good. It would be very, very bad if you did.”

They were silent while Lucas considered his next move. It was worth the risk to get any modicum of information from Ethan. “You think our blood does something to them?”

“Why would you say that?” Ethan asked.

Barely there beneath his indifferent tone, Lucas heard Ethan’s desire for the answer.

“Well, I know you stole Stephen’s book.”

“It is hardly stealing to make use of Father’s belongings. I am simply curious about our past.”

At Ethan’s nonchalance, irrational rage threatened to boil up inside of Lucas, but he tamped it down. Besting Ethan would require cool reason. “Yeah, right. Curious. Well, now that I’m here at Kaštel, I’m curious too. I find myself wondering about all those vampires in the book, the ones walking in the daylight. Then you go and insist I shouldn’t feed Pedro…”

Ethan remained silent, so Lucas pushed once more with his best guess.

“Makes me think our blood gives them special powers. Sun tolerance, maybe?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The pitch of Ethan’s rose minutely, but Lucas heard it.

It wasn’t easy to provoke his brother, but Lucas had honed the skill. You couldn’t go straight at him, or his wall of ice would descend fast. You had to circle, make him come after you instead. “Okay, whatever you say.”