“When you said you were going to teach him slang, Remy, you should have stuck to one decade,” Zane said dryly.
Ethan frowned, glancing over at Remy. “That was not appropriate? It is her mother. One says ‘word’ when one is agreeing with another. Is that not correct?”
She patted his arm. “You did just fine, baby.”
“God, I am ditching all of you at the next hotel. No lie,” I said, passing my sketch to my mother. “Now go on, tell me what you make of that.”
She adjusted the bifocals on her nose, studied it, and then shrugged. “It looks like a vagina.”
I snatched the page back from her, ignoring Remy’s not-so-muffled snort of laughter. “It’s the circles. The circles.” I stabbed my finger into the paper. “I was drawing on a warped surface. They’re supposed to be circles. Haloes. And these spiky things around the outside are supposed to represent the sun. If you hold the paper up, it looks just like one of the windows in the Luminary House.”
“Of course they do, dear,” my mother said soothingly, patting my back. “But you didn’t have to draw it, honey. You’re a bit too old for me to be hanging this on the fridge.”
“I don’t want you to hang it on the fridge,” I said, clenching my fists. “I brought it to discuss. This is the only drawing of this particular ceiling and it’s very important—”
She snorted, interrupting me. “This is a bad copy. The pictures in the gift shop do a much better job with it.”
I straightened in surprise. “Pictures in the gift shop?”
“Of course. Luminary House is very popular even if they won’t let anyone go up and visit the dig site. It sells lots of postcards, I’m told.”
“They won’t let anyone go up and visit the site?” I cried in dismay. “But I need to get up there. Tonight. You can’t get me in?”
“You can’t go tonight,” she said. “It’s dark outside. You’ll fall off the ladders and break something.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Remy said cheerfully. “Zane can fly up there.”
“Fly?” My mother’s eyebrows rose.
“Fly!” I repeated quickly, thinking hard. “You know. Zoom up there. Because he’s fast. Like a ninja.” When she looked over at Zane, I winced and gestured for someone to help me.
Anyone.
They merely sat there and grinned at my discomfort, hateful beasts. I loathed all of them.
Sophie got up from the table and approached my mother, taking the piece of paper from me. She pointed at one line of the carefully copied writing. “We found this inscription along with this drawing. Have you come across any Scythian language in the ruins?”
“Scythian?” My mother said, baffled. “The Luminary House is only twelve hundred years old. Scythians existed much, much earlier than that, young lady.” She shook her head, glancing over at me. “This generation is so uneducated.”
“She knows when the Scythians existed, Mom,” I said. Seeing as how she
was
one. Of course, I couldn’t tell my mother that. “So no other languages?”
“Bob said he thought he’d seen an Egyptian symbol for Ra,” she said thoughtfully. “But we all thought he’d been drinking on the dig again, and sun symbols aren’t exactly rare.”
An Egyptian symbol? Lots of the angels who had fallen had settled in Egypt. The queen of the vampires was Egyptian, after all. I bit my lip, excited again. “Can we see it?”
“In the morning, dear. My benefactor will be by early to see how things are going. You can go with his tour group.”
I groaned. “Can’t you just show me there now?”
“It’s too late at night, Jackie. You’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
“Can you point out where it is on the map so we know where to look in the morning?” Sophie asked.
For a moment, I was almost grateful that Sophie was here.
Almost. It was a feeling that faded pretty fast.
“Not until morning,” my mother insisted. “But if you want, you can all camp here tonight. We can catch up. You can tell me all about how your dig in the Yucatan went.”
Oh hell. The dig I’d abandoned? I smiled tightly. “Fun.”
Across the room, Zane grinned.
“Rule number one of a porn star: never let your family know what you’ve been up to. They won’t understand. Tell them you went into finance or some shit. No one ever asks questions when you tell them you work with spreadsheets.”—
Remy Summore’s Tips on Life and Love,
by Remy Summore
~*~
My mother chatted for hours, seemingly full of energy despite being in her sixties and spending a full day in the sun. As she talked and told us about the dig, the weather, her arthritis, my no-good father, and then more about the dig, I sat next to Zane, who played with my hair as he watched my mother in amusement.
Mom had taken a shine to Ethan, it seemed. He seemed impressed at everything she showed him, so she’d been digging photo albums of digs past out of a trunk and was pointing to a particularly exciting bit of wall that they’d excavated in Cappadocia, Turkey.
Zane leaned over to me. “You never mentioned your mother.”
“Nope.”
“Strained relationship?”
“If by strained you mean nonexistent? Sure.”
“Nonexistent? She seems to have affection for you.”
“She does now,” I said. “I’m grown and no longer require much attention. Also, I went into the same line of work she did and I’m not any good at it. That tells her that she was a good mother, but the fact that I’m bad at it makes it safe for her to tell me what she’s working on. She doesn’t have to worry about me ‘scooping’ her digs and stealing her thunder. That’s why she and my father divorced. He was an archaeologist too. She didn’t like the competition.”
“And where’s he at?”
“Last I heard, somewhere in Turkey,” I said, swigging from my water bottle. “We don’t keep in touch.”
He nodded at one of the photo albums my mother was pulling out. “So I take it I won’t find one of those full of pictures of teenage Jackie?”
“Only if I’m standing in front of a dig site,” I said dryly.
He brushed my hair away from my cheek. “That’s very sad, Princess.”
I shrugged. “That’s our family. We’re not close. I don’t feel sad about it because that’s just how it’s always been for me. And probably why I’m not the slightest bit inclined to settle down and have a family.”
His face grew grim. “I can’t give you a family. The only way we could have a child is unnaturally, and that child would be like Ethan, but worse. Dark. Unnatural.”
I shook my head. “You’re all that I want, Zane. All I ever wanted. The only reason we’re here tonight is because my mom has information that I thought might be helpful.” I sighed. “And we’re stuck waiting for some tour group in the morning because she is hiding said helpful information.”
“We could go up there on our own,” Zane suggested.
I shook my head and pressed a hand to my forehead, wishing the vein in my temple would stop pounding. My mother always caused that reaction. “I have no doubt that if we try to go up there on our own, my mother would call the cops and get us kicked out of the park for trespassing. It’d be a bigger mess than it already is. Let’s just wait for morning.”
Zane dragged a finger down my arm suggestively. “We could always go find a nice private backseat of the car and misbehave, if you’d like?”
My skin tingled and my breath caught at the hot, heavy-lidded look he gave me. “I’d like that very much.”
~*~
Though I didn’t like waiting for sunrise, we didn’t have much choice. We bunked down for the night with mom’s archaeologists. The night was spent pleasantly—in Zane’s arms in the backseat of the car as we took care of each other’s needs. I suspected that Remy and Ethan were off somewhere doing the same. Where that left Sophie, I had no idea. We gathered early in the morning for a midnight snack and to make plans, and I noticed Sophie’s eyes were over-blue again, a sure sign that she was in need, though she didn’t acknowledge it.
Must be nice to have that much control over one’s body. I started Itching like mad when I was overdue by a few hours.
We breakfasted with the small encampment, my mother making comments about how much I ate (some things didn’t change), and then we waited impatiently for the “benefactor” to arrive. I kept checking my watch. The last thing I wanted was for Phryne’s girls to show up and turn this into a brawl.
We had to get going, and quickly.
Unfortunately, that meant I’d be going without Zane, since the sun was now up and he was struggling to stay awake. I kissed Zane as he dropped into sleep in one of the tents. His fingers laced with mine, and he looked up at me. “You’ll be careful? I wish I could be there with you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said softly. After all, it wasn’t me that Phryne wanted to off. Which worried me—Zane was vulnerable in the daylight hours.
He sensed my unease and pressed a kiss to my palm. “Leave Sophie with me if you’re worried. She’ll guard me.”
My mouth puckered as if I’d bit into something sour. “Yeah, and I don’t know if you noticed, but she’s currently overdue.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be asleep, Jackie.”
“So? I’ve totally molested you in your sleep before.”
His eyes flared with red, his smile wicked. “I had pleasant dreams that day.”
My cheeks flushed red and I pushed at his cheek playfully. “Very funny.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about, Princess.”
I knew I didn’t with him. It was Sophie I had to worry about. She was rather single-minded about her survival. Where I had found a core of strength in my immortality, Sophie seemed to be made of steel throughout. She’d use my boyfriend and think nothing of it. Just something that needed to be done in order to survive, like eating or drinking.
Man, I hated having other succubi around. Well, except Remy. She’d rather make out with
anyone
other than Zane.
This jealous streak of mine sucked.
Car tires grated on gravel and I jerked around.
“That’ll be your tour group,” Zane said, a yawn in his voice. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
I gave him one last, lingering kiss and then strode out of the tent.
Remy immediately grabbed my arm, intercepting me as I walked out, practically shoving me between a pair of tents. I stumbled, clinging to her arm for support. “Remy, what—”
“Mayday, mayday,” she hissed, grabbing my arm and crouching low.
I huddled behind one of the tents with her quickly. “What is it?”
“Guess who your mom’s benefactor is?” she whispered. “It’s Noah.”
I groaned.
“My reaction too,” she said. “I found out about two seconds before you did. We have to ditch him. I love Noah, but he’s not exactly going to let us waltz in and steal shit from right under his nose.”
Not if he was here. Him being here meant either one of two things—he was tracking me because he wanted to drag me back to his side… or he was after the halo as well.
Neither of these situations was ideal. I stiffened, glancing back at the tent where I’d left Zane. Shit.
Shit
. He was vulnerable in daylight hours. No matter how badly hurt, he’d never awaken. Someone could murder him while he slept and he wouldn’t be able to raise a finger to stop them.
“We need a distraction,” I murmured.
The gravel crunched to my side. “Did someone say distraction?” Sophie asked, all dulcet tones.
I looked up at the Amazon and her blue, blue eyes and grinned. She’d had sex with Noah before. She needed sex right now. I explained the situation to her quickly. “Think you could get Noah off our hands?”
She licked her lips like a too-pleased cat. “Perhaps. You’re going after the haloes?”
“We need to go before Phryne gets here,” I said. “We can’t afford to wait.”
She glanced around the tent to the clearing, where Noah stood shaking hands with my mother, exchanging greetings. “I will distract him,” she said. “You will need to go on.”
“Got it,” I said, standing up. “Thank you, Sophie. Can you keep guard over Zane, too?”
“Of course,” she said, giving me a puzzled look. As if I was ridiculous for thinking that she’d leave his side. To my surprise, she reached behind her and tugged a gun out of her belt, and offered it to me.
My eyes widened and I shook my head.
She jiggled it at me. “Take it. I’d offer you one of my knives, but those require skill. Any fool can shoot a gun.”
I scowled and snatched the gun from her. The last time I’d used one of these, I’d shot Zane by accident. Any fool, indeed.
Sophie pointed her finger and thumb like a gun and poked me in the forehead. “Aim for the head. Shooting a limb will not slow an immortal down much. A bullet to the brain will slow them down for several hours.”
“Like in the zombie movies,” Remy said helpfully.
I pulled the gun out and eyed it thoughtfully, and then handed it to Remy. “If my master’s here, this might not be any good in my hands.”
Sophie nodded. “Wise choice.”
Remy took the gun and did a little hopping step, then struck a pose. “Look, am I totally Lara Croft or what?”
I glanced over at Sophie. “You were saying?”
“I was wrong,” she said dryly. “Stay here while I go and distract your big blond Serim.”
I didn’t like the husky way she said that, but I said nothing. Instead, I watched as Sophie strolled out from between the tents, her hips rolling with an amazing, sensual fluidness that I’d never noticed before. Every step was a suggestion. She sauntered through the camp, as if heading for a set of tents across the way. As she moved, her gaze flicked to Noah, and the cerulean intensity of her gaze swept over him. She licked her lips again, and then kept sauntering. She was fucking gorgeous.
Hell, I wanted her in that moment.
Noah wavered, his conversation faltering. As my mother gestured at the cliff, I noticed Noah’s gaze straying over to Sophie, where she continued past the tents, disappearing from view.
Noah excused himself from my mother and followed where Sophie had gone, frowning.
“He doesn’t look happy,” I commented, a little pleased to see that.
“That’s because Sophie just went all Pied Piper on his ass and his dick is a rat.” She frowned. “That sounded better in my head.”