Dawn Caravan: Elemental Legacy Book Four (Elemental Legacy Novels 4) Read online

  A shadow flickered in his dark eyes. “To accompany our sister.”

  “You know there’s more to it than that,” Ben said. “Radu, I’m trying to help. Think. Look around you. Who benefits most from your loss of legitimacy?”

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t avoid Ben’s eyes. “I appreciate your honesty, Ben Vecchio.”

  “I won’t lie to you.” He glanced at Tenzin. “And I didn’t dismiss her outright. But I can tell when she’s lying.”

  Tenzin snorted. “No, you can’t.”

  “Really?” Ben raised an eyebrow. “The ship in Puerto Rico?” The place she’d told him she was leaving for China and that it had nothing to do with him.

  Tenzin narrowed her eyes and looked away.

  Why did he persist in irritating her? She was showing admirable restraint as it was.

  Ben had no idea how much gold Tatyana had hidden in her caravan. But was Tenzin stealing it? No. Radu kept a chest full of gemstones in his vardo. Had she taken a single one?

  Well yes, she’d taken a rather nice sapphire, but then she put it back.

  See? Evolving.

  She was doing remarkably well on her New Year’s resolutions. Did Ben give her any credit? No. He continued to act as if she hadn’t changed at all.

  And he still had iron control over his sexual urges, which was very frustrating.

  “Tell me this has nothing to do with me. Look me in the eye and tell me this has nothing to do with you and me and what happened in that cave…”

  Why had he brought up Puerto Rico? Three years had passed since that happened. Was he still angry that she’d left? If she hadn’t, she would have lost control, just like she had in the cave. She would have hurt him. She’d nearly killed him while he spent his dying breaths reassuring her that it was okay.

  Oh no. She’d needed a long break from the temptation that was human Benjamin Vecchio.

  He’d been slowly wearing down her control for years, picking at her, making her lower her guard, trying to reveal the human beneath the vampire she’d become.

  Ben thought he knew her, but he had no idea.

  “Tenzin?”

  Radu was gone. The two of them sat alone at a table on the edge of the forest with a candle burning between them and an open bottle of blood-wine.

  She turned her eyes to him. “Why do you try to humanize me?”

  Ben looked surprised. “Because you are human.”

  “I’m not.” Something in the center of her chest ached. “You should be honest about who I am, Benjamin. Otherwise, the person you think you love will only be an illusion.”

  The smile he gave her was halfway between bitter and sad. “I know who you are.”

  “Do you?”

  Ben leaned on the table. “I think you tried. I do. But the last job finally made me understand how you saw me as a human. So maybe this was all inevitable.”

  “Do you think I thought I was greater than you? Better somehow as a vampire?”

  “I know you did.”

  “You’re wrong.” She leaned forward and ran a finger along his jaw, reveling in the contact, the energy that embraced her, even as he held her at a distance. “You were always too good for me, Benjamin. I never deserved your admiration or your friendship, much less your love.” She gently touched her lips to his. “Shining boy. White knight. You should have been more afraid of me.”

  “I couldn’t be.”

  “Are you afraid now?”

  His lips remained parted. “No.”

  “You should be. I’m trying to remember who I was,” Tenzin said. “But the parts I had to cut away were all the soft, gentle things. I’m not sure what’s left.”

  He grabbed her hand. “If you take off before this is finished—”

  “I’m not.” She took a breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been following you for two years, Ben. You haven’t figured out why?”

  “I’m waiting for you to tell me,” he said. “You call me a white knight, but we stopped playing chess the minute I stopped being human. I need to hear the words, Tenzin, because I’m tired of trying to read your mind.”

  You’re lovely. Lovable.

  Lovable. She’d had to look it up to make sure she understood the nuance. Love was a very imprecise word. Lovable meant “deserving of love or affection,” which was a circular definition and not at all precise, but it told her one thing: Ben thought she deserved love, whatever that meant to him.

  What did it mean to her?

  Tenzin looked toward the bonfire. “English needs better words.”

  “Then find another language to tell me how you feel,” he said. “You find the right words to tell me, and I will learn the language.”

  27

  When Ben opened his caravan door to the dusk sky, he was in an entirely new landscape. His trailer was parked on the crest of a hill where the earth sloped down into rolling fields of poppies and tall grass. For as far as Ben could see, not a vehicle or a human habitation was in sight. A pair of rabbits stared at him from the edge of the grass as they munched on thin stalks of what looked like wild oats.

  The sky was a brilliant velvet blue that reminded Ben of the deepest ocean. Stars were just starting to peek from behind the clouds, and the scent of fire and roasting meat filled the air.

  He turned to the left and followed the scent around a copse of oak trees toward a meadow carefully mowed down to make room for the Poshani settlement.

  “Good evening.”

  Ben turned to see Tenzin walking with René.

  Is she trying to piss me off?

  Ben felt like they’d been getting somewhere the night before—he thought they’d had a meaningful moment—but maybe that was wishful thinking. Maybe all of this was wishful thinking.

  René looked like the cat that had blissfully chowed down on the canary as he bent down and kissed Tenzin on the cheek. “Au revoir, chérie. Shall we meet for a drink later?”

  “No.” Tenzin stared at Ben. “Don’t bother me until tomorrow night. Or maybe the next one.”

  René chuckled. “As you wish.” The smile he smothered was smug and satisfied.

  Ben waited for the Frenchman to be well away before he spoke. “Seriously?”

  Tenzin lowered her voice to barely over a whisper. “I told him what is really going on with us.”

  “You mean—”

  “He knows we’re not really mated. That we’ve been estranged for a couple of years.” Tenzin frowned. “More like three if you count the time between Puerto Rico and Shanghai.”

  “Why?” Ben struggled for words. “Why would you do that?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Which are?”

  The frown didn’t leave Tenzin’s face. “I know I need to share things with you, but it is very cumbersome to feel like I have to explain myself to another person. Shall we get some blood-wine?”

  Ben took her arm and steered her back toward his trailer. “Food can wait.”

  “I am quite—”

  “You’re going to tell me what’s going on.” He opened the door and nearly tossed her inside. “I know you probably have a reason for informing that man about our business, but I don’t know what it is and I don’t know if it’s a good reason. So spill.”

  Ben crossed his arms over his chest, blocking the door as Tenzin looked around the trailer.

  “You removed all your notes.”

  “I remember them.”

  She smiled. “See? Better memory too. I told you—”

  “We’re not going over all the user upgrades to my body and brain I’m still getting used to, Tenzin. Tell me why you told René about us.”

  She sat, leaned her elbow on the table, and rested her chin on her hand. “I needed some relationship advice.”

  Ben’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

  She smiled. “I’m joking. But that face you’re making right now is excellent.” She looked around. “Where is your tablet? I want to take a picture of it.”


  He shook his head. “René, Tenzin. Tell me why you told René.”

  “Ah.” She settled back in the chair. “Do you know how long he’s been here? Four weeks already. Far longer than Radu invited him for.”

  “Why would René take time out of his intense schedule of scheming and duping human women to— Ohhhh.” He uncrossed his arms and sat across from her. “You think he’s planning something.”

  “Of course he is. Radu invited him on the Dawn Caravan because he suspects that René might have stolen the goblet. But why did René accept? He’s in no need of shelter right now. None of his jobs are particularly hot.”

  “So why did he take time out of his regularly scheduled scheming to hang out in rural… wherever were are—”

  “I’m fairly certain it’s Ukraine. I think we’re out of Romania now.”

  “Whatever.” Ben found the concept of borders becoming less and less relevant now that he had access to every country by air. “So René’s planning something.”

  “He knows Radu lost something,” Tenzin said, “since he didn’t make a secret of hiring us. Then he invites an odd company of immortals to the Dawn Caravan right before a large festival, along with Kezia and Vano, the other leaders of the Poshani. He knows something is going to happen.”

  “It’s risky for René. If he stole the goblet from Radu, his contract would be broken, and he’d be an earth vampire at the mercy of some very unfriendly people.”

  “But René knows he didn’t take anything, so he is not concerned. He does know something odd is going on and something valuable was lost. He’s smart enough to look past that. What will the state of security on the caravan be when its leaders’ attention is so divided?”

  “Oh.” Ben saw it in an instant. With Radu distracted by his missing treasure and both Kezia and Vano occupied with shifting power dynamics… “So René’s planning to flat-out rob the caravan.”

  Tenzin nodded. “It’s quite a good plan. I used something similar when I robbed Wangara.”

  Ben frowned. “Who?”

  Tenzin tapped her fingers on the edge of the table. “Not a who. It’s quite a large complex of gold mines in West Africa. See, at the time gold had gone down in value because of Musa’s hajj, so repurposing a large amount of it during a religious festival was actually beneficial to the economy.”

  Ben lifted an eyebrow. “You robbed a gold mine to benefit the economy?”

  “Obviously.” She shifted in her seat. “But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about René, who definitely has plans to rob this caravan.”

  “Stupid.”

  “Highly stupid,” Tenzin said. “I agree. But he’s gathered quite a lot of good information that I feel like we could use.”

  “Like what?”

  Tenzin slid a piece of paper across the table. “Like the combination to the lock on Kezia’s caravan. I copied it from a notebook in his trailer that he thought he was hiding.” She smiled. “He’s adorable. Kezia is old-fashioned.”

  Ben looked at the paper. “A combination lock?”

  “Combined with a tumbler. She trusts the Hazar far too much.”

  “Apparently.” A tumbler lock could be picked with a simple set of picks he’d practiced with when he was ten. “Okay, I’m supposed to do this tonight, right?”

  “Yes.” She angled her head toward the door. “I believe Radu is gathering your distraction as we speak.”

  “Fun.”

  “I better go.” Tenzin rose. “I don’t want Radu to doubt my innocence. Wait at the back of the crowd until the Hazar join the festivities. Then search Kezia’s trailer.”

  “Got it.”

  Clutching the paper in his pocket, Ben walked to the kitchen trailer and sat down for a plate of kebab, rice pilaf, and a delicately spiced eggplant dish. He wasn’t ravenous, but he ate more than he’d been expecting. Then he drank a full glass of blood-wine, thanked the cooks, and wandered toward the bonfire in the middle of the poppy-dotted meadow.

  As he walked, he watched the dynamics of the campsite. Instead of observing the vampires, he watched the humans.

  Children. There were far more children than he’d realized the first night he came. Ben wondered if they kept the younger Poshani out of the way when a new vampire joined the caravan. That would make sense. But now the children emerged from campers and travel trailers. They rode horses across the meadow and tossed balls at each other from horseback in a game that looked a little like polo without the mallets.

  The crowd near the bonfire was growing, drawing occasional vampire attention, but mostly human. Ben heard a loud bang, then a zip of fire, and a bright stream of light shot into the sky. It disappeared into the darkness for a brief second before it exploded into a massive shower of sparks.

  Ben smiled. Fireworks.

  The crowd clapped in appreciation.

  As he approached, he saw the ground around the bonfire had been meticulously cleared of grass or anything flammable. Most of the vampire guests were sitting in plush chairs at the center of the crowd while servers offered glasses of wine or plates of fruit. Tenzin had already joined them, sitting close to Radu with René on her left side and Kezia on her right. She glanced at Ben, then quickly looked away.

  On the far side of the crowd, near Kezia’s trailer in the distance, Ben saw Tatyana watching with an amused expression on her face.

  Ben wandered over. “This is nice.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Quite a show for the little ones.”

  “For grown-ups too.”

  She looked around. “One errant spark and this all goes up in flames.”

  “Such an optimist.”

  “A realist.”

  Ben glanced at her hands, then at the small stream that ran along the edge of the forest. “Keeping an eye on things?”

  “I’d be a fool not to,” she said quietly. “Even water vampires can burn.”

  “True.”

  “Still…” She shrugged. “Radu asked me to keep an eye out for any errant fire, and I was willing. There are not many of my kind in the camp.”

  “You’re generous to help.”

  “I’ve become quite good at putting out fires.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “I used to work for Oleg.”

  “I see.”

  “I very much doubt that, Benjamin Vecchio.” She raised a hand, and a basketball-sized blob of water rose from the nearby creek. “But I’m ready when I need to be.”

  He gave her his biggest grin. “Good vampire.”

  “Ugh.” She curled her lip. “Put it away. I’m not in the mood for your teeth.”

  Ben laughed. He liked Tatyana. He liked her cranky nature and her obvious humanity. He liked that he caught her smiling when children ran past and there was a cat who followed her around the camp, clearly knowing that eventually Tatyana would give him food.

  Why are you here?

  Was she on the run? Hiding out? Or here to bargain for a shot at staying hidden beyond the season by fencing a priceless cultural treasure? Could she be part of Vano’s or Kezia’s schemes?

  “Vampire life is complicated,” Ben muttered.

  “So it is.” She looked over her shoulder. “The Hazar are coming to watch. Radu will call them down.”

  Ben looked up and saw the shadowed silhouettes of wind vampires guarding the perimeter of the camp. “Seems like you’ve gotten to know the ins and outs of this place pretty well.”

  “I’m observant,” Tatyana said. “Some of us don’t come into immortal life with riches, connections, and extraordinary power.” She glanced sideways at him. “We have to watch for our opportunities.”

  Ben’s curiosity was driving him crazy, but he knew he had to focus. Now was not the time.

  “Come closer. Put out your lights.” Radu lifted his voice and shouted at the Hazar. “I don’t want to worry about burning our fine guards. The fire will keep others away tonight. Why don’t all of you watch from the ground to protect yourself?” Radu caught Ben’s e
ye for a fraction of a second. “It will only be for a few minutes.”

  Understood.

  As the crowd grew denser and torches and lights were doused, Ben fell back, eventually leaning on the corner of a camper trailer parked next to Kezia’s.

  Another zipping firework.

  Another cheer from the crowd. Darkness, then explosion.

  Ben saw no hovering shadows, and no one was looking his direction. He ducked between the trailers and dove under Kezia’s caravan. Then he emerged on the far side and examined the door.

  Another pop. Another gasp of delight.

  The combination lock was simple, no electronics, and the tumbler was far from a challenge. He managed to open it within a minute.

  He cracked the door and felt a nearly imperceptible trip line pull tight.

  Aha. Slipping his fingers along the edge of the door, Ben felt for the device and disabled it with a razor blade and a piece of tape. It wasn’t a sophisticated device but a basic hack that would alert Kezia when someone entered her trailer.

  He was buying time. Probably five to ten minutes at most.

  Like Radu, Kezia lived in an old-fashioned vardo, but there was nothing rustic about it. Silk wall hangings covered where curtains normally would be. The woodwork on the walls was carved and painted, and gold trim lined the cupboard doors and ceiling beams.

  In an intricately designed living space like this one, there were a hundred places to hide something small, which was what Ben was looking for.

  He surveyed the space, deliberating the most obvious place to start.

  Not the desk or office area.

  Not the closet or the vanity.

  The sleeping area.

  She’d want to keep her treasures close. Ben walked to the platform bed at the far end of the trailer and poked his head past the drapes. It was a cozy space with thick wall hangings that blocked out all light and would keep the custom wagon warm when it was cold in the winter.

  Not that Ben saw Kezia spending a ton of time rolling through the winter in her vardo. She was far more likely to be spending the winter in the Crimea or on the Mediterranean or wherever Poshani royalty liked to hang out.