Small. A minor thing really. It was just a ring. For his mate.
He smiled as he drifted off to sleep.
“I know this is not just a ring.” Tenzin pinched his chin. “I’m letting you get away with it for now.”
Because you love me. He smiled but kept his eyes closed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Just a ring,” she muttered. “You think you’re so smart.”
“I know I am.” He cuddled her closer. “It’s okay, Tenzin. We’ve got forever to argue about it.”
“No, I am not agreeing to that.” Ben was irritated and trying to not let it grow into hurt. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest it.”
“And I can’t believe we’re still arguing about it when I offered a perfectly reasonable explanation—”
“You agreed—I heard you!—that we had forever.”
“That was a figure of speech.” Tenzin turned to him from across the kitchen. “I was trying to use more colloquial English, and now you’re using it to trap me.” She let loose with a tirade in her language, and Ben felt his temper spike.
“You are teaching me that language, or I’m filing a formal complaint with Zhang.”
Tenzin lifted her chin. “You need to learn Ge’ez.”
“I’ll multitask, dammit.”
Ben was standing in the doorway of Tenzin’s house in Tibet, a truly strange habitation perched on the edge of a mountain and consisting of three rooms, two caves, and the world’s narrowest garden. It was a house that only a wind vampire could love.
Because the only way to get there was by flying.
Ben watched her as she heated a bag of blood in boiling water on the wood-fired stove that heated the house. “I cannot believe after everything we’ve been through— Tenzin, we’re mated! Your amnis is literally inside my body. You think that it’s just going to disappear after a while?”
“I am not going to promise you forever.” She poked the bag and turned to him. “You have no concept of what eternity means. What forever is. We could turn into completely different people, and then promises made with the best intentions become prisons, Benjamin.”
“And I’m not agreeing to a hundred years!” He stood and braced himself in the doorway. “A hundred years is going to pass like the blink of an eye for you, and then what? We’re done? Just… done?”
She took the pot off the stove. “I never said we were done. I’m just saying that we agree to renegotiate—”
“Our relationship is not a sports contract, Tenzin.”
“We agree to honestly evaluate how we feel about each other, and then we can extend… You know.”
“Our contract?” God, she was so infuriating. If he didn’t know it came from a place of love and concern for his age, he’d want to strangle her.
Who was he kidding? He still wanted to strangle her sometimes.
“A thousand years,” he said. That was twice the length of his uncle’s entire immortal life, and it was a substantial chunk of Tenzin’s.
Five hundred was what he was going for, and Tenzin loved to bargain.
She narrowed her eyes and considered it. “Two hundred.”
Gotcha. “That’s ridiculous. I’ll consider eight hundred.”
“Three hundred.”
“Five, and that’s as low as I’m going, Tiny. You try to negotiate our relationship” —he leaned down and got in her face— “any shorter than that, and I’m walking away from this conversation.”
She stuck her hand out to shake. “Five hundred.”
“Fine. Five hundred years together, and then we can sit down and have a conversation and make sure it’s still working for both of us.”
Tenzin nodded. “That seems fair.”
“Good.” He shook his head. “You drive me up the wall sometimes. You really do.”
Her curving fangs flashed in the lamplight when she smiled. “Then I supposed it’s a good thing I taught you how to fly.”
She forgot the blood and grabbed his hand, leaping off the edge of the cliff and dragging him down toward the dense forest of birch trees that blanketed the river valley below her mountain.
Ben flew through the birch grove, darting among the trees before he flew to Tenzin, following the path of the river lit by the light of a full moon. He dipped his fingers down to trail in the water, splashing Tenzin as she soared above him.
She laughed and reached for him, drawing his body to hers as the wind led them over the forest and through the mountains, holding them as she pressed their bodies together and her mouth took his in a possessive kiss. Her lips were honey, and his blood sang when her fangs found his neck.
Ben held her as she drank him in, pressing Tenzin to his heart as his soul rose with the wind. He heard the music in his mind as his arms encircled his mate. The air held them in its gentle embrace.
And they danced.
* * *
THE END
(for now)
Continue reading for a first look at Martyr’s Promise, the next book in the Elemental Covenant series.
* * *
Brigid and Carwyn are two elemental vampires finding the lost and righting wrongs, searching for meaning in an endless stretch of immortality.
And trying not to blow things up, but that might be more aspirational.
First Look: Martyr’s Promise
Summer Mackenzie watched the waves slowly recede from the ash-grey pebbles tucked against the sweep of the foggy California coast. She turned to her right, keeping an eye on the trail where her boyfriend Dani had detoured to look for a campsite.
Low tide wouldn’t be for another six hours, which meant the current leg of their route was impassible until early morning. They’d need at least five hours to finish the stretch of trail that took them closest along the beach, and they needed daylight. Summer had learned long ago that you didn’t go into the forest at night.
She’d grown up in Appalachia, and even though she might have been away from those ancient rolling hills of North Carolina for three years, she knew better than to disrespect the woods.
Summer heard Dani before she saw him. Daniel Uriarte might have been an incredible athlete—with the soccer scholarship to prove it—but he wasn’t a woodsman.
Dani smiled when he saw her. “I found the perfect spot. Come, you should see this.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Definitely.” He held out his hand. “You are going to love this one.”
Summer was tempted to leave her pack near the beach, but if Dani had really found a prime camping spot, she didn’t want to backtrack and there was no way they were staying that close to the water; the waves along California’s Lost Coast had a mind of their own.
Summer hoisted her bag over her shoulder and followed Dani between two pines. “So what’s so special about this spot? There’s a clear camping area up on that last bluff that was all leveled off.”
He turned, his smile still vibrant. “Trust me. I know you think I don’t know anything about camping, but—”
“I have never said that,” Summer protested. “I just know you didn’t grow up in the woods like me. Your knowledge of soccer—”
“Football.”
“Football.” She rolled her eyes. “Your football trivia is expert level. I’m just saying that when it comes to what bugs you can eat in a survival situation, I have skills.”
Dani laughed and grabbed her hand. “Summer, stay with me so you will never eat bugs again.”
She couldn’t hide her smile. “So romantic.”
“Just follow me, mi sol, and you will see.”
When Dani had first moved from his high-rise in Mexico City to the rainy streets of Seattle, Summer knew he would have laughed at the idea of camping, much less backpacking for six days along the Northern California coast.
Summer followed Dani as he led her along a slightly worn path leading into the trees, his broad shoulders carrying a bright orange pack as if it weighed nothing.
Since t
hey’d met, Summer had turned Dani from a total city boy into an outdoor enthusiast. They fished, they hiked, and they’d even backpacked a little. He loved boats, and his family had more than one.
Or maybe they were more like yachts?
Ugh. Rich people vocabulary was confusing.
“How far back is this site?” She looked at the brush that was giving way to denser forest.
“Not too far.”
Summer couldn’t even imagine the level of wealth that Dani’s family enjoyed. In truth, it was starting to become a Thing They Didn’t Talk About. They had been dating a year, but she hadn’t met Dani’s parents and he hadn’t met hers. When any of their mutual friends happened to bring up family stuff, they both changed the subject.
Summer had been raised by a high school math teacher and a musician in rural North Carolina. Her father had taught her how to hunt and fish—along with her times tables—and her mother had taught her the guitar and how to cook anything out of everything. They were a traditional clan who took pride in hard work, loyalty, and self-sufficiency.
She had no idea how they’d react to their daughter dating the heir of one of the largest tile empires in Mexico. Half the time, she didn’t know how to react herself.
Dani walked between another set of trees, stopped, and spread out his arms. “Voilà!” He glanced at Summer, whose mouth was agape. “You see, I knew you would love this.”
Love… wasn’t the right word. Summer turned in a circle, her eyes scanning the obviously man-made clearing in the middle of the woods.
A nearly perfect circle of tall pines soared into the sky, their tops obscured by a layer of marine fog. As she stood in the center, she looked up and saw the sun disappear behind a cloud.
Dani was crouched in the center of the clearing, kneeling beside the old stone fireplace in the middle. “It’s perfect, yes? Some local family must camp here.”
No, this was not a family campground.
The dense forest suddenly felt claustrophobic, and Summer felt eyes peering at her through the trees. There was something out there. Something was watching them.
Don’t stare into the trees unless they know your voice. Her grandmother’s whisper tugged at her ear, warning her to leave the clearing.
Summer walked over, grabbed Dani’s shoulder, and tugged. “Come on. Let’s go back to the trail.”
Dani stood and frowned. “What are you talking about? This is the perfect spot! The area around the campfire is so clear and level. I checked for poison oak.” He pointed at the fireplace. “See? There is even some wood left over from the last people who stayed here.”
It wasn’t even a firepit; it was a full-out, dressed-stone stove with grates in the bottom for wood and braces on either side to hang pots over the flames. This wasn’t natural, it wasn’t even foraged.
This was a lure.
“Dani, just trust me, we shouldn’t stay here.” Instinct told her they were being watched. “I think we should head back to the coast, okay?”
Dani pointed toward the ocean. “We’re not far from it. You can see the ocean from here.” He turned and faced the coast. “I bet you could even see a fire from the marked trail. And people come back here.” He pointed to the trail that had led them into the circle of trees. “See?”
She couldn’t explain it, and she loved that he’d found what to any sensible eye seemed like a great spot. “It just… it feels very visible. Everyone can see us.”
Dani set his pack down and sat on a piece of log that circled the fireplace. “Summer, everyone we’ve met on the trail has been so cool. We have to camp until the morning, right? We might as well camp in a clear camping spot with a firepit that someone has already prepared.”
Was she just being stubborn? Paranoid? Granted, her family made it hard to discount the mythological, but she was probably overreacting.
Dani stood and held out his arms. “Listen, even if you are right and people can see us, so what? They can see us just as easily from the bluff on that last hill. We’re the only human beings out here, we have our bear repellent, and I am tired.” His arms dropped. “Please. Can this one thing be easy?”
She looked over her shoulder at the marked trail, then over at the worn path through the brush, the forest, and into the clearing. This was obviously a well-used spot on the trail, and the rangers did request that they keep to used camping spots instead of creating their own.
“Okay.” She kept her voice small. “But we’re pitching our tent right by the fire. I don’t want to be near the edge. If something gets into this clearing, I want some advance notice.”
They’d stopped far sooner than they usually did, so they had plenty of time to cook a full meal with the supplies they’d brought along with some sea lettuce and large limpets that Summer had foraged on the nearest beach.
After they’d eaten, Dani pulled out a bottle of whiskey and poured a little into both their camping cups. “We’re going to sleep well tonight.”
“We are.” With the tents set up and the coals glowing, Summer was starting to feel as if she’d been paranoid earlier. Sure, they hadn’t seen anyone else on the trail since the day before, but it was September and tourist traffic was pretty low.
She leaned back against Dani’s chest as he propped himself against a fallen log and stared into the fire. “Did you pack up all the food?”
“Yes.” He patted his pack, which held the bear canister they were required to take. “I’ll hang it from one of the trees before we go to bed.”
Summer was full from a hot dinner and the whiskey that warmed her throat. She felt herself drifting, and the sounds of the forest at night settled around them. Crickets hummed, and a few night birds started calling. She heard an owl start to hoot in the distance, and the faint sounds of the sea crashing on the rocks below them lulled her into sleep.
She woke when Dani moved.
“Come on,” he said. “Tent time.”
She groaned but forced herself up to sitting and rubbed her eyes. She reached for the portable motion sensor that her father had bought for her and set it within range of their tent door; then she went inside to find the small remote and set it.
“Your burglar alarm.” Dani smiled as he entered the tent. “Do you think the bears will be scared away?”
“I just like knowing if I need to wake up.” She smiled and tucked the remote into a mesh pocket in the tent. If anything tripped it, the remote would beep. Not loud enough to wake Dani, but Summer had always slept light.
“You’re worse than Ignacio.” Dani stripped off his flannel shirt and shuffled into his sleeping bag, wearing only his pants and a thermal shirt. “There is less wind here than by the beach.”
“I know. It might be warmer.” Nevertheless, Summer kept her pants and socks on. If a bear—or anything else—attacked the tent, she wanted her shoes on in seconds, not minutes.
Dani rolled toward Summer, put his arm around her waist, and tugged her sleeping bag toward his until she could feel his warm breath near her neck. “Sleep well, Sunshine.”
Summer smiled at his affectionate nickname and closed her eyes.
In minutes, she was asleep.
The beeping was insistent. Summer’s eyes flew open and her heart was already racing.
“What is that?” A low voice whispered outside the tent.
She sat up, put a hand over Dani’s mouth, and nudged his shoulder until his eyes flew open. He frowned and moved to pull her hand away, but the voices spoke again.
“A phone maybe?”
“There’s nothing out here that can get signal.” The voices were matter-of-fact. Bored even.
Summer shook her head and put a finger over her lips as she removed her hand from Dani’s mouth. He nodded, understanding the need for silence.
Their tent was a typical backpacking tent, small and compact. Easy to pack and set up, but there was no room to move around without being heard.
Something shook the top of their tent, and Dani sat up.
&n
bsp; “Wakey-wakey,” the voice said, amusement coloring the words. “Come on out, neighbors.”
Summer knew these were no friendly woodsmen. Dani took the canister of bear spray from his pack as Summer removed her hunting knife from its sheath. They both slipped out of their sleeping bags. Summer shoved her feet in her hiking boots, and Dani did the same. She eyed her jacket in the corner and took the calculated risk of setting her knife down for a second to put it on. Dani did the same.
Don’t move. Make them come to you. Waste their energy, not yours. Her father’s voice was the one whispering to her now. Her father, who’d been raised by monsters, knew what he was talking about.
A flashlight beam moved around the tent, and Summer concluded that there were two men stalking them. Well… two somethings. Humans were the most obvious, but not the only choice.
Dani whispered, “Summer—”
“Shhhh.”
“Oho.” A man outside chuckled. “I think the city birds are awake.”
“Come on out, little birds.” The flashlight moved to the tent opening and didn’t move. “Don’t make us come in there to get you. That’ll just irritate me.”
Where were the voices from? Summer tried to decipher an accent, but she couldn’t. It was flat California speech with just a hint of surfer.
Dani’s hand gripped Summer’s, and he kept the bear spray aimed at the exit of the tent. If he let it off in an enclosed area, they’d be weeping and sick, but hopefully whomever Dani hit with the spray would get the nastier end.
The zipper on the tent started to move. “Come on out now.”
Fingers were visible at the entrance now, fat callused fingers with black curly hair on the backs.
Dani looked at her with panicked eyes. Summer took a deep breath and tried to breathe through the rush of adrenaline that was starting to course. She held up a hand for him.
The Bone Scroll: An Elemental Legacy Novel Page 30