The Force of Wind (12 page)

“How is she?”

“Well. She was shocked, of course, but they’re catching up. It’s… good.”

“And he’s safe?”

If Stephen had been exchanging blood with Tenzin for some time, it would explain the strange level of energy from the young vampire. Simply ingesting a little of Tenzin’s ancient blood would strengthen Stephen immeasurably. If the point of the blood exchange had been to make him stronger than Lorenzo, it was most likely already accomplished. The young vampire was no longer holding back, and the strength of his amnis had been evident from across the room that night.

Giovanni had to laugh. “Oh, yes. I think Stephen is very safe.”

“What do you mean ‘very?’”

“He and Tenzin are mated.”

There was nothing but silence on the other line.

“Um…” Carwyn finally sputtered. “Well, that’s… what? Tenzin and…”

“Stephen, yes. They’re mated.” It was probably common knowledge on the island within minutes of the revelation, so Giovanni had no qualms revealing it over the phone.

“Has she… I mean, has Tenzin ever taken a mate?”

“Not that I know of.”

“That is very… interesting.”

“I thought so, too.” Giovanni heard shouting in the background. What was his old friend up to?

“Well, on that very interesting note, I should probably go. It’s nightfall here, and I have much to do tonight. Lots of news, but it can wait.”

“Anything vital?”

“No, it can wait. If you need to contact me, I might be in Scotland visiting the boys for a bit. So try there if I’m not here.”

“Are you sure everything’s fine?” Giovanni heard a crash.

“Oh, nothing I can’t handle. Give my best to B.”

“I will. And hello to Deirdre and the boys, too.”

“Goodbye, my friend.”

Giovanni ended the call and hung his head. He took a deep breath. Something odd was going on with Carwyn. Stephen and Tenzin were essentially married by ancient tradition. His son had arrived with an unexpected and very powerful ally. It was too much. He thought he had escaped this life three hundred years before. He did not relish returning to the wily manipulations of politics or the constant danger and tension he found himself embroiled in.

He just wanted Beatrice.

So, he left the library and sped down the hall, waving at Baojia as he unlocked their room and entered. He heard the vampire slip away, and Giovanni locked the reinforced door behind him, leaning against it for a moment as he listened to her soft breathing while she slept.

He smiled and crept silently into the room, gazing at her as her chest rose and fell. The tension had left her face, except for her eyebrows, which were slightly furrowed. He undressed and slid behind her, grateful that she hadn’t worn nightclothes so he could feel the warmth of her skin against his own. He wrapped his arms around her waist, cradling her against his body and taking comfort in her scent and the soft beat of her heart.

“Beatrice,” he whispered against her shoulder. Giovanni knew he should let her sleep, but he needed her. He needed the comfort of her touch, and he needed to see himself in her eyes.

“Tesoro,” he murmured, as his lips trailed down her back. His hands brushed along her sides, tracing over her hip under the red silk sheets. She shifted onto her back, and he was able to see her small form. Her pale skin was luminous in the soft lamplight. Her breasts peeked above the sheet, and her hand was thrown over her head in a plaintive gesture. He drew the sheet down and kissed along the ripples of her ribs as her brown eyes flickered open.

“Gio?”

“Hmm,” he hummed when she tangled her hands in his hair. He had cut it again, so she wasn’t able to grab the length of it as she liked, but her fingers played along his neck as he tasted the skin on her belly.

“I missed you,” she said, her heart already racing. “Come here.”

She tried to pull him up, but he slipped under the sheet, determined to continue his leisurely exploration. Her soft cries filled the silent room as he slowly brought her to climax, piercing her thigh with his fangs as she arched her back and whispered his name. He drank her sweet blood before he slid up her body and into her, finally meeting her mouth as they moved together. Beatrice’s hands gripped his shoulders, and she met his gaze, staring at him as he moved over her.

She was worth it. Worth every worry, every pain. Her safety and security was everything to him. After five hundred years of existence, she had become the singular desire that animated his immortal life.

He drove her harder when he felt her peaking again, and he chased her pleasure, burying his face in the crook of her neck as she stroked his back and he shuddered. They lay together in silent communion, his body and mind refreshed from her love.

Giovanni finally rolled onto his side and pulled her under his arm, cradling her head on his chest as he played with the ends of her hair and ran gentle fingers up and down her back. He smiled to see the way the small hairs on her body reached for him.

“I’d say I was sorry to wake you up, but I’m not.”

He felt her shoulders shake. “You can wake me up that way anytime.”

Giovanni laughed quietly and hummed a tune he knew she liked.

“I love it when you hum.”

“I know.”

They lay in peace for a few more minutes.

“Have you called Matt? Did you let him know? How’s Ben?”

“Yes, I called Matt. Benjamin is fine. It sounds like school is going well. Caspar and your grandmother still love the house.”

“Carwyn?”

“Still in Ireland.”

“How’s Deirdre?”

Giovanni shrugged. “He didn’t say much.” He paused. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you in the hall.”

“Shh,” she whispered, reaching a hand up to stroke along his cheek. “It’s fine. I was fine. After the initial surprise, I was fine.”

“I should have expected it. Matt said he would make an appearance.”

“But we had no way of knowing. Just like we had no way of knowing…”

She trailed off, and he knew she was thinking of her father and Tenzin.

“Beatrice? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Did you have any idea?”

“No. I sensed there was something we weren’t seeing, but with Tenzin, you never know.”

“Why? Why would she—”

“Your guess is as good as mine. It’s possible they simply have a connection. I’m not going to lie and say it’s not odd to me, but she certainly doesn’t have to ask my permission to have a relationship.”

“With my dad.”

“Is it that strange?”

She screwed her face into an adorable frown. “You have to understand, he never dated when I was young. Not that I ever knew of. So to see him again, after so many years. And he looks exactly the same as when I was thirteen. We look like we’re almost the same age. And then Tenzin, who I know is way older than you or even Carwyn, but she looks like she’s a teenager…”

“It’s strange to you.”

“Yes!” She shook her head. “And I know it’s my own problem. But she’s my friend, and he’s my dad. And it just feels…”

“What?”

“Weird.” He began shaking in quiet laughter, and she hit his shoulder. “Shut up. I know I’m being ridiculous, but it’s weird. There’s no other word for it.”

“What if they have found love together? As we have? Would you begrudge them that?”

“No.” She propped herself up and lay a gentle kiss on his mouth. “No, everyone should be as lucky as we are.”

“Lucky?” he smirked. “Kidnapped. Blackmailed. Chased around the globe. Targeted because of who we are and what we know. We’re lucky?”

She smiled and laid her head on his chest, looking at him and trailing a finger along his lips. He opened his mouth and let a fang peek out. She flicked it with her fingertip, and he growled in pleasure.

“Born five hundred years apart? Finding our way to each other through pain and loss. All that so we can have hundreds, maybe thousands, of years together? Lucky.”

This time, it was Beatrice that moved, stroking his face and kissing his lips as they lost themselves in each other again. After another hour, he had exhausted her, and she was sleeping again. He dressed and slipped from the room to walk through the gardens, calling one of Tenzin’s guards to watch Beatrice’s room. Baojia showed up anyway.

Giovanni strolled through the palace grounds, working his way across the gardens until he was wandering through the stones in front of Elder Zhongli’s wing.

“Well,
you
smell like you’ve had a good night.”

He turned to his son, who was sprawled on a bench, pleased to have found him so quickly.

“I’ve had an excellent night, thank you.”

“Your human is very alluring, but I’m surprised you haven’t killed her yet. I tend to break human women. That’s why I gave up on them years ago. Too fragile.”

“Not all of us are barbarians.”

“Oh”—Lorenzo threw out a laugh—“yes we are. Just because we fool ourselves with the trappings of courtly life does not mean we’re not monsters.”

“Becoming a philosopher in your old age, Lorenzo?”

“Oh no.” His blue eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I quite enjoy being the thing that goes bump in the night. In fact, I revel in it.”

Giovanni stepped closer to his only child. At one point, he and Lorenzo had been almost like brothers, lashed together, trying to survive the whims of a madman. That they had gone such drastically different directions still bothered him.

“Why do you want this elixir?”

Lorenzo’s eyebrows lifted. “Ah! So Stephen did figure it out, did he? I thought he would, especially when I discovered he was here. I wonder how he put the pieces together to come here. It’s very curious.”

Giovanni had wondered that himself, but he did not voice his suspicions to Lorenzo. “How did you know he was here?”

“Oh, what’s the saying?” Lorenzo glanced over his shoulder toward the Zhongli’s guards that shadowed him on the palace grounds. He smiled. “‘A little bird told me?’”

“Of course.” So Zhongli Quan did have some ulterior motive inviting Lorenzo to the island. Otherwise, why would he have tempted him with Stephen’s whereabouts?

“You never answered my question. Why do you want this elixir?”

Lorenzo grinned. “I’m a humanitarian.”

“You’re a monster.”

He shrugged. “I’m a monstrous humanitarian?”

“Why?”

Lorenzo only rolled his eyes. “As if I would tell you,
Papà
! What do you think? I’m going to reveal all in some strange, enlightening monologue? What makes you think I even have a reason? Maybe I just want it so others can’t have it?”

“You’re too calculating for that.”

Lorenzo stood in the blink of an eye. “Yes, I am.”

His son stepped closer, and Giovanni could feel the heat running along his skin. It would be so easy… But he saw Lorenzo’s guards step closer, so he smiled and turned to go.

“I’ll see you around, Lorenzo. We’ll have to have some father-son bonding time when your guards aren’t around.”

“So sentimental, Giovanni. I do love a good family reunion. If only Niccolo was here.”

Giovanni turned, cutting his eyes toward the guards before he looked at Lorenzo. “If Andros was here,” he whispered, “you wouldn’t be.”

“Oh, I know.” Lorenzo’s mouth curved into a wicked smile. “I remember. Everything.”

Chapter Eight

Mount Penglai, China

September 2010

“S
tupid, irritating, obscure, dead, Persian guy.” Beatrice muttered as she scanned a copy of a sixteenth century manuscript, searching for the exact ingredients of a curative concoction that her father thought might be similar to one of Geber’s ingredients. “Why couldn’t he just write in clear language instead of putting everything in code?”

Stephen glanced up. “Trust me, I understand. Having his journals was the only thing that let me decipher the manuscript at all. Otherwise, it would have been complete gibberish.”

They were buried in Zhang’s personal library, which Stephen said rivaled the monastery library where the manuscript was being kept. Zhang Guo’s selection of manuscripts and scrolls was… intimidating.

Beatrice stretched her neck and looked around. “Is this library bigger than Lorenzo’s collection? Well, it’s rightfully Gio’s, I suppose.”

“It’s comparable.” Stephen nodded and looked around. “The subject matter is just wildly different. I really could go on for ages about Andros’s collection from the ancient world. He seemed to have a particular fascination with the near East and Minoan culture.” Stephen chuckled. “If
you
got your hands on it, you could spend an eternity cataloguing its contents. It wasn’t exactly organized in any fashion. And, of course, Lorenzo moved it periodically, so I’m sure some things have been lost or damaged.”

She shook her head. “So, in addition to kidnapping and murder, the bastard’s guilty of putting ancient documents at risk. I really have to kill him now.”

Stephen shook with laughter. “Oh, Mariposa…” He reached across the table and brushed her cheek. “I’m so lucky to see you again.” Stephen sighed a little, and she could see his eyes line slightly with pink tears. “I never really thought I would, you know? I hoped, but I never thought it would be safe for us to be in contact. If you hadn’t come under Giovanni’s aegis—”

“My life would be…” She laughed. “I can’t even imagine.”

“You’d probably be safer.”

“Yeah, but I’d be bored silly. I’d get myself into trouble.”

“I doubt that. Though you do seem very suited to all this. It’s rather amazing, if you think about it.”

She shrugged and continued scanning the pages. There were numerous mentions of mercury, but she had yet to find the original formula for “mercury of life” that Tenzin had recommended she look for.

“Dad, why didn’t you just memorize the damn formula with your super-duper vampire brain? I’m trying not to be judgmental here, but—”

Stephen barked out a laugh. “It wasn’t exactly a cookie recipe. There were so many steps, and I didn’t know half of what the terms were, much less how to concoct them or process them. I mean, I was an assistant professor of medieval literature, for heaven’s sake. It probably would have made more sense to a chemist or a holistic doctor, though so many of the ingredients were obscure, even a trained alchemist might have had problems.”