Page 129 of Dawn Caravan
“Sit,” she growled. “Didn’t I just say you’d get your treasure?”
“What is wrong with you?” René yelled even as his eyes began to blink longer with every minute. “You should be running outside and telling Radu what Vano did.” He blinked harder. “You should be… tell Vecchio.”
“Ben will be fine.” The last thing Vano would do was hurt Ben. Too many people knew Ben was working for Radu. Not many knew that she was here though. Therein lay the brilliance of Vano’s plan.
Utter silence told Tenzin that René had fallen into day rest. She walked over, bent over him, and slapped him hard across the cheek.
“What?” He sat up straight, his eyes wide. “Tenzin?”
“Just checking to make sure I can wake you when it’s time.”
“What?” He didn’t answer because he slumped to the side, falling into day rest again.
“Never mind.” She patted his shoulder before she dragged him onto the floor.
It was always good to have an earth vampire handy. That was why she’d lured René into her caravan. Not to make Ben jealous but to have another tool in her pocket.
Tenzin sat next to René and waited until the attack came.
33
Ben passed the day in a dreamless sleep. Nothing disturbed him. Nothing nibbled at his brain. He slept peacefully for the first time in months, and he woke with two certainties in his mind:
He still loved Tenzin. He didn’t know if they could be together, but he also didn’t know how not to love her. He’d said horrible things to her the night before, most of which he didn’t mean, but he wanted to be with her if she was still willing.
Vano had the emerald goblet, and he was planning a coup against his brother and sister. The signs were all there. Kezia might be wise to it, but Vano was the ringleader and Radu completely underestimated him.
Which meant that Ben’s only goal in the next week before the festival—other than trying to mend things with Tenzin—was to break into Vano’s trailer and find the emerald goblet to prove to Radu that his brother was the source of the trouble.
He lay in bed, listening to the night birds waking. An owl hooted in the distance, and the strong scent of lilac told him that wherever they’d moved, flowers were blooming nearby.
Ben sat up and stretched, washed his face in the kitchen, and drank from the preserved blood in the fridge. He didn’t love cold blood, but he didn’t hate it either. Sometimes it was oddly, and grossly, refreshing. He’d stopped trying to explain why. He leaned against the small counter in the kitchen and listened to the birds.
Something was off.
Something was… wrong. It was too quiet.
Ben pulled on a pair of pants and walked to the door, swinging it open to reveal nothing but the sloping hills beyond his trailer and nothing else.
No fires. No musicians. No camp.
The Dawn Caravan was gone, and there was only the faint scent of something burning and a hint of kerosene in the air.
Shit.
SHIT!
What happened? Had Radu tipped his hand to Vano? Had he found the thief himself? He’d had an agreement with Radu. He wasn’t supposed to back out without a single word.
Ben walked down the steps and turned in a circle.
When he saw the wreckage, his stomach dropped.
Beyond the oak trees, there was a single caravan smoldering, the body split open to reveal ashes everywhere. There was a mark on the side, a distinctive blue logo he remembered from the first night in her trailer.
It couldn’t be. His mind couldn’t process what he was seeing. It wasn’t hers. It couldn’t be. He raced toward the burned-out carcass, his mind rebelling at the images before him.
They wouldn’t have burned her trailer.
