Page 76 of Night's Reckoning
Cheng and Tenzin recruited some of the night crew and followed Fabia’s directions, setting up the saltwater tanks that would be necessary to preserve artifacts until desalination could commence at the university. Kadek and Ben wrote out their own diagrams and survey maps of the wreck so Johari would know what she would need to do and where to focus once they started removing artifacts.
Ben went to bed a few hours before sunrise, eager to get some sleep so he could make another dive the next day, but he had a hard time relaxing. His mind was bouncing between the wreck and the crew. Between Johari’s story of heartache and Tenzin reminding him about Louis. He kept replaying their dance in the moonlight. Over and over again.
There was something he’d forgotten. Something he’d meant to bring up, and then it slipped away…
“Speaking of the cargo—”
“We should dance.”
Oh. Damn.
Ben sat up and his ebullient mood fled. “Nicely done, Tiny.”
Of course she hadn’t been feeling sentimental. Of course she wasn’t reminiscing about Italy or their past. Tenzin didn’t reminisce. She had sensed a subject she didn’t want to talk about, and she’d dodged it by playing on his feelings.
Typical.
The realization turned his memories of the previous night bitter, but once again he’d have to get over it. It was Tenzin; he should have expected nothing less.
He’d bring up the problem with the cargo first thing in the morning. God knew she had nothing else to do during the day. Tenzin couldn’t dive and she couldn’t be out in the sun. It was pure luck they were carrying a bunch of academics who were completely focused on their work and ignored the mysterious woman in the forward hold who bounced a basketball for hours on end.
When he finally managed to sleep, Ben dreamed about dancing with Tenzin while sailors sank beneath the surface of the ocean. They danced across the sky while humans thrashed in the water beneath them and lightning struck the mast of a creaking wooden ship. They spun wildly in the tempest like a solitary twisting waterspout, consumed with each other and oblivious to the world around them.
One by one, the sailors’ cries grew fainter and the sound of the wind grew. In his dream, their lips met, warmed by pulsing blood and hunger.
Then everything went silent. She floated away from him, releasing his hand.
He fell.
* * *
Ben didn’t wait longafter he woke to confront Tenzin about the missing storage jars. He hadn’t slept well, and he’d woken up annoyed that she’d used Louis to distract him from a conversation about the cargo.
He marched to the forward hold and opened the door without knocking. “Hey, Tenzin?”
She was lying in a corner of the room where she’d built a pallet for resting and meditating. Her eyes were closed and she appeared frozen. If he didn’t know her, he would have thought she was dead.
“Tenzin.”
Movement behind her eyelids.
“You’re not sleeping, Tiny. And you knew it was me or you would have met me at the door with your fangs down.”
Her fangs were always down. While other vampires could retract them to remain inconspicuous, Tenzin’s never completely retracted. Her canines curved back in her mouth like raptor talons. He knew how sharp they were because he’d cut his lips and tongue when he kissed her.
“Tenzin.”
Her eyes opened and she rose in one movement to fly at him. Gripping his shirt by the collar, she bared her teeth. “I. Was. Meditating.”
Ben’s pulse should have spiked, but it no longer did. He’d once been proud of that fact; now it disturbed him. Had he lost the ability to be shocked? Lost the ability to fear? He had become too accustomed to her quicksilver moods.
“I’d apologize for interrupting, but you very expertly distracted me from bringing this up last night, and I’m kind of annoyed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The cargo, Tenzin.”
“What?”
