Page 54 of Night's Reckoning
She tucked it into her purse. “I’ll give it to my grandmother.”
“You better not.” He got out of the car and opened the back door to grab the books he’d found in the library. One was the Italian glass book Tenzin had been talking about. The other was a museum publication on a Tang dynasty shipwreck. Both might be useful.
Ben bent down smiled at Mei. “Drive safely please. And text me when you get home. I put my number in your phone.”
“Okay.” She gave a little wave. “See you later, Benjamin.”
The blue compact turned around in the parking garage, and one of the valets held the traffic for Mei as she turned back onto the city streets and headed home.
Jonathan greeted him at the elevator. “I don’t suppose you found the book she was looking for?”
“I’m the nephew of Giovanni fucking Vecchio.” He held up the blue-jacketed hardback. “Of course I found the book.”
“Excellent.” Jonathan pushed the button for Ben’s floor. “I see you cut your lip.”
“Shut up, Jonathan.”
The vampire looked amused. “Just another…” He gestured to Ben’s face. “…addition to the collection, I suppose. The rest of the bruises were healing. You were almost back to your normal visage. How common that would be.”
Ben looked at the pale, acerbic vampire. “Do you practice being an asshole in the mirror? Or does it just come naturally?”
“Quite naturally, I assure you.”
Ben got off on his floor, leaving Jonathan in the elevator. Tenzin would get the message that he had the book. If she wanted it, she could come to him. Until then, he was going to take a shower, ice his lip, and get something to eat since he’d never gotten his noodles.
Was he going to think about the fact that she’d kissed him and then taken off again? No, he wasn’t. Ben was beginning to understand something. Something that had been clarified in the dark courtyard after she’d run away for the second time. Or was it the third?
Tenzin was just as confused as he was.
They’d had one relationship, and now it was turning into something else. What it was, neither of them knew. But he’d be damned if he was the only one willing to bend.
Both of them would have to bend, or they would break.
Ben stripped off his clothes and got in the shower, washing away the blood flaking off his torso and avoiding his lip until he could get ice on it. Most of his wounds from the last job in Italy had healed, and he only had a few greenish-purple bruises left. He could probably use a shave, but he didn’t feel like it. The darkening beard on his chin would hide some of the bruising from Tenzin’s kiss, so he’d leave it for now.
He got out of the shower and glanced at the clock. Only two in the morning. She’d be awake.
She’s always awake.
Ben wondered if Tenzin had taken any time to meditate since she’d left New York. Normally she needed quiet solitude at least a few days a week in order to keep steady. That could have been part of the edge he’d been feeling from her.
He wrapped a towel around his waist and walked out to the small kitchenette in his room to grab ice from the freezer. He filled a plastic bag and pressed it to his swollen lip just as he heard the knock on the connecting door between his and Fabia’s room.
He unlocked his side and opened it. “Hey.”
She glanced up and down. “Where were you?”
“I went to Tenzin’s house with her to look for a book about Italian glass.”
Fabia glanced at the ice on his lip. “So how was that?”
He lifted the ice from his mouth. “She bit me.”
Fabia opened her mouth. Closed it. Then she shook her head and walked to the table. “I’m going to stop trying to understand your relationship.”
“That’s kind of my plan too.” He pointed to the table. “Might want to look at that. Tenzin’s pretty sure that there would have been glass ingots among the cargo Arosh sent to her sire.”
Fabia flipped open the book. “It would definitely fit with trade goods coming from the Middle East and India during that era, so let’s hope so.”
