She and Michael retreated into the brush, backing away with their weapons still fixed on Damon. Once they were a good thirty meters away, Alexia pressed the skin of her throat over the subcom implanted beside her larynx and adjusted her earpiece.
I think we should do it, she said, speaking soundlessly through the subcom.
Mike touched his own highly sensitive earpiece, which picked up their subvocalizations as if they were spoken aloud. He’ll kill as soon as our backs are turned.
You think I don’t hate him as much as you do? she asked. But we have to find out how much he knows, if he’s really working for the Independents.
Independents, Michael repeated, the scorn evident in his words. You know even they would enslave or slaughter all of us if they could find an excuse.
So let’s not give them one, Alexia said. Look, there are useful things we can learn just by observing him. Maybe he’ll slip and give us a clue about his real agenda.
Then you’re assuming he’s lying, too, Michael said.
We don’t have to trust him. He may be stronger and faster, but we’re pretty well matched in acuity of smell and hearing—and there are two of us. One can stay with him while the other keeps watch from a distance. That way we’ll have someone free to report back if there’s any treachery.
Forget it, Michael said. We stay together. That’s Aegis policy, and—
We can break policy if we judge it necessary. And I think it is, Mike.
He gave her a look she’d never seen on his face before, one uncomfortably like mistrust. But when he spoke again, there was only resignation in his expression.
Okay, he said. Who do you propose stays with him?
I will, she said without hesitation. I’m better at hand-to-hand, and you’re the better marksman.
Once we split up, he’ll know what we’re doing, Michael said.
Then he’s not likely to try anything, is he?
After a long moment of silence he nodded, briefly and not at all happily. Alexia frowned. It just wasn’t like him to be so grim. I guess the best thing to do is pretend to have an argument, she said.
Michael pulled a face. He’ll never fall for it.
Probably not, but he’ll be even more suspicious if we don’t try to make it sound convincing.
Michael signaled agreement, and they switched back to audible voice, still whispering to make it seem as if they were trying to prevent Damon from listening in. Michael was extremely persuasive in his refusal to go along, and Alexia found it easy to work up the appropriate anger. She’d already been troubled by Michael’s open protests before, and Damon wasn’t likely to think their exchange this time any worse than the previous one.
Once Michael had “stomped” off, vowing to let her learn from her own mistakes, Alexia returned to Damon. He was sitting up again, head cocked as he watched her approach. He wasn’t smiling, but she could feel his amusement at her and Michael’s little game.
“It seems your partner doesn’t agree with your decision,” he said.
She crouched a safe distance from him, her gun loose in her hands, and met his gaze.
“We work together, but we’re not chained at the ankle. He’ll see reason eventually, and until then you won’t be able to complain that we aren’t on equal footing.”
Damon’s eyes reflected a shaft of sunlight breaking through the rustling canopy of oak leaves above them. “I don’t remember complaining,” he said, “but I’m gratified that one of you has seen the benefit in my proposition.”
Something in the way he said the words, the way he looked at her, made Alexia feel unaccountably warm. He was so damned agreeable that she found she had to remind himself what he was and whom he worked for.
And she didn’t dare make the mistake of believing that this mild behavior wasn’t just a cover for savagery that would reveal itself the instant she let him think she trusted him.
“I don’t expect you to trust me,” Damon said, as if he’d been reading her mind—an ability she was pretty sure not even full vampires possessed. “But we can do nothing if you don’t release me.”
Alexia wasn’t in any hurry to follow his pointed suggestion. “First I want to know exactly what you plan to do.”
He shifted as if he were trying to make himself more comfortable, but Alexia could see the tension in every line of his hard, lean body—tension that belied his easy manner. “I suggest we approach the settlement together,” he said, “and once we’re close enough to observe the colonists’ activities, we’ll separate. At the end of a set time we rendezvous and pool our information.”
Too simple, Alexia thought. Much too simple. “Why do you think we’ll come up with different information?” she asked.
“Because we are different, you and I.”
She knew that technically that wasn’t as true as she wanted it to be. Over the years Aegis had determined that Daysiders and dhampires were much alike in their speed, strength and senses, with one or the other holding slight advantages in a few areas.
Neither was as strong and fast as a Nightsider, but both held the advantage of being able to move freely in daylight without suffering the deadly burns that afflicted full vampires.
The only comfort Alexia took from the comparison was that dhampires were, without exception, on the side of law and decency, while Damon’s kind served an evil, corrupt society of unrepentant killers. And while they lived on blood like their masters, no dhampir would ever give way to that sick, unnatural hunger.
“Yes,” she said coldly. “We are very different.”
He stared into her eyes again, and she felt as if she could fall right into that spellbinding blackness and never come out again. “But not so different that we cannot understand each other,” he reminded her. “And in one way we are very much alike.”
“What way?”
“We are both outsiders in our worlds.”
Alexia wasn’t about to admit how true that was, but Damon had freely offered information that seemed a little too personal to share with an enemy. It had to be part of a plan to get her off guard.
“Have you ever met a dhampir before?” she asked.
“I have only observed from a distance.”
Once again his candidness surprised her, though he could, of course, be lying.
“You don’t allow the birth of my kind in Erebus,” she said, testing him.
“Such matters are the province of the Bloodmasters.”
“Do they kill my kind when they’re born, or before?”
“Such conception is forbidden.”
“Funny how that didn’t stop vampire males from impregnating human females during the War. But then again, they didn’t have any part in raising the children they created.
None of our mothers had much choice about conceiving, but at least they didn’t discard us.” She paused, remembering to breathe. “We have a unique place in the Enclaves, and a purpose. What about you?”
“If I had no purpose, I would not be here.”
“So even though you’re an outsider, you’re loyal to your masters.”
“As loyal as you are to yours.” His expression, previously so mild, went cold. “Tell me, how much choice did you have in becoming an agent of your city, risking your life every time you leave it?”
“How much choice were you given to be what you are?”
They stared at each other. Eventually Damon shook his head.
“I have suggested a course of action,” he said. “Do you intend to release me?”
Alexia shouldered her gun and crossed the space between them, every sense alert. She used her own key to unlock the cuffs. The moment he was free she jumped well out of his reach. He stretched his long legs and rubbed his wrists just as if he could feel pain and discomfort as much as any human being.
“What about your partner?” he asked, gathering himself to rise. “Do you expect him to rejoin us, or is he likely to move on his own?”
“If you mean will he attack you, no. He won
’t endanger me.” She watched him intently as he got to his feet, her eyes drawn once more to the litheness of his body and the assurance of every move he made. Why, in God’s name, wasn’t she feeling the disgust and contempt she should have felt at the mere sight of him?
Because it was something else she was experiencing, both physically and emotionally.
Something she couldn’t begin to understand.
She hated it.
“What about your people?” she asked before her emotions could escape her rigid control. “Do you expect me to believe that Erebus hasn’t sent more than one operative to observe the colony?”
“It seems likely,” Damon said, “but as we generally work alone, I would not know the nature of their assignments.” He brushed the dirt from the front of his pants. “I would advise you to tell Agent Carter not to compromise your mission by approaching the colony alone.”
“You know wireless communication is forbidden in the Zone,” she told him.
Which wouldn’t have made any difference to agents from either side, except that both the Enclave and the Citadel scrambled all signals outside their borders. She might be able to get through to Michael, but the odds were against it. He’d have to find a way to keep close enough to help her if she needed it, but far enough away to avoid making Damon too nervous.
“May I collect my weapons?” Damon asked.
Back to that damned politeness. Alexia jerked her head in permission, though every instinct was screaming in protest. Damon searched among the bushes, found the knife and pistol, returned the knife to a sheath at his back and tucked the pistol into some inner pocket of his uniform jacket.
“That’s it?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “You must have other weapons.” He straightened and zipped up his jacket, though the weather was warm and he probably didn’t react to changes in temperature any more acutely than she did.
“I left them some distance from here, along with my pack,” he said. “I will retrieve them on the way to the colony.”
“I assume you know the way?”
He stood facing her, unmoving, legs braced slightly apart. “Don’t you?” he asked.
Now he was testing her. “Let’s not play games. You’ve tried to make us believe that your Council hasn’t known about the settlement all along, but that’s a little difficult to believe given that it’s less than two klicks away from the Citadel’s western border. It’s not exactly hidden, is it?”
“I see you do have some information already,” he said, deflecting her question.
“Perhaps Aegis has sent other operatives before you.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“The first concrete intelligence on the colony was provided to the Council by an operative less than a month ago.” He hesitated, frowning with what appeared to be uncertainty. “It is possible the Expansionist Faction were aware it existed before that time.”
Alexia didn’t believe for a moment that he hadn’t rehearsed that line very carefully.
“Hasn’t it occurred to you the Expansionists also set it up right under your Council’s noses?” she said.
“No. This was done quietly, by those who did not expect to be noticed. Or missed.”
“Like your Freebloods and the cast-off human serfs no one in Erebus wants. But you’ve admitted the Council has been aware of the colony for a month, and they still haven’t done anything about it.”
An inscrutable look flitted across his face. “The first agent was able to tell us very little.
He died soon after he made his report.”
“That’s unfortunate,” she said with false regret.
“He was fatally injured in the Zone by an unknown assailant. The one who attacked him was a professional and used a weapon forbidden in Erebus.”
Alexia stiffened. “What are you suggesting?” she asked. “That one of our people killed him?”
“The weapon was the one you call ‘Vampire Slayer,’ such as the one you carry strapped to your pack,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.
“The killing of hostile agents isn’t permitted except in cases of self-defense,” she retorted.
“Yes,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. “We are only spies, after all, tasked to make certain the buffer zone is maintained. But it would not be the first time an agent of either side has died between the Borders.”
Not the first time, Alexia thought, and certainly not the last. There had been at least one dhampir fatality in the Zone each year since the Treaty had been signed, the latest Michael’s former partner. Such facts could not be openly acknowledged by either side.
But dhampir agents were hardly a renewable resource, and they weren’t casually sent on missions to assassinate enemy operatives for no good reason.
“Even if I believed one of ours did it,” she said, “I wouldn’t tell you.”
“I wouldn’t expect it,” he said. “Just as you won’t expect to learn anything from me that my superiors don’t want you to know.”
So he was confirming that everything he said to her was calculated to achieve a certain goal. Not that she’d ever doubted it.
She smiled back at him, baring her teeth. “I guess we understand each other,” she said.
“After you...”
Without a word he turned and set off north, moving almost soundlessly now that he had no need to be heard.
Alexia followed close on his heels. He was giving her the chance to shoot him in the back, but nothing in his posture suggested that he was worried. She kept half an ear out for Michael, but he must have decided to stay out of range of her senses, or Damon’s.
Just as well.
They traveled quickly over once-occupied land that was gradually reverting to its original state, hiking up and down oak-studded hillsides and avoiding the valleys with their decaying suburbs and open streets. Damon picked up his rifle and pack after they’d gone a few miles, securing the weapon to the back of his pack as a sign of “good faith.”
There was no further sign of human or vampire presence until they reached the summit of a hillside overlooking what had once been known as the Bennett Valley.
Most of the fields and vineyards below had long since become overgrown with native grasses, shrubs and scattered trees, but there wasn’t any mistaking the nature of the several green rectangles that marked out the deliberate cultivation of crops. They had not been created for Nightsiders, who had no need to rely on such food sources, but for their human “property.” At the opposite side of the valley, tucked up against the foot of the low Sonoma Mountains, stood a high, rectangular wall guarding a compound of buildings—twelve or thirteen according to Alexia’s count, suggesting the presence of as many as a dozen Nightsiders and perhaps three or four times as many humans.
The sight both chilled and infuriated her. She glanced at Damon, who crouched beside her with his own binoculars in hand, almost as if she expected the same reaction from him.
Of course that was ridiculous. He was from Erebus. What disgusted her would be perfectly natural for a leech. This was only a job to Damon. There was nothing personal in it.
She couldn’t afford to make it personal, either. Not if she wanted to keep her head...and her life.
Alexia pulled off her pack, and Damon did the same. “How do you want to do this?”
she asked him. “If we split up here, you can go around from the north and I’ll approach from the south.” She glanced up at the sky, noting the angle of the sun. “We don’t have much daylight left. Let’s rendezvous tomorrow morning at 0900 hours on that hill directly east of the colony, by the rock formation. Whoever gets there first will wait for the other. Agreed?”
Damon lowered his binoculars. “Agreed,” he said. He met her gaze, his own unreadable. “I trust you’ll keep your partner from killing me if he rejoins you?”
“I already told you. He won’t do anything rash, unless you—” The report of an automatic weapon cut her off, and she flung herself flat on the groun
d. Damon was down beside her a second later. Bullets whizzed over their heads and struck the tree trunk just behind them.
“Someone,” Damon said, “does not want us here.”
Chapter 3
Alexia smothered a cynical laugh. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
As much as he detested his own feelings, Damon couldn’t help but admire her. He had done so from their first meeting, when she’d played it so cool in the face of her partner’s intransigence.
All feigned, of course. Not her courage—he had no reason to doubt that—but certainly Carter’s fury. No trained agent of Aegis would be so flagrantly emotional when facing the enemy. It had all been an act for his benefit.
Just as he was putting on an act for the dhampires, doing his best to make them believe he didn’t hate everything they stood for.
But not Alexia herself. Lying so close beside her, he could inhale her scent, both floral and spicy, without the distraction of other smells. He breathed in deeply, tasting the air around her: the heat of her skin, the unique signature of the blood pulsing through her veins, and the faint female tang that stirred his body in a way he wanted very much to ignore.
Once again, as at the beginning, he was captivated by her beauty, her natural grace, the harmony of her movements. Not even the bulky camouflage fatigues could conceal how extraordinary she was. Her sleek, slender figure, strong and utterly female at the same time, was as perfect as that of the most beautiful Opir female. Her hair was the color of her namesake’s fur, her skin honey-warm in the light of the dying sun, her green eyes with their oval, almost catlike pupils vivid and fearless.
If it hadn’t been for all those compelling qualities and a hundred more uncounted, he might have continued to forget that he had once been capable of wanting a woman. But she had made it impossible for him to take any further comfort in that denial. Or in the solitude he had learned to embrace over the past two decades.
Lifting his head a little, Damon peered in the direction from which the shots had come.
The shooter wasn’t in the valley; Damon estimated that he or she must be hidden somewhere in the hills on the other side.
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