Page 90 of Dawn Caravan
Radu’s eyes twinkled. “Indeed I am. Is it so obvious?”
“To one of the same element? Yes. Maybe not to others.”
Radu tapped his temple. “Ah, but you’re a clever man.”
“I’d better be.” Ben’s eyes swept the gathering, examining the immortals and humans he saw. Though the tables were relatively close together, the music prevented any eavesdropping, which was probably part of the reason they played it.
The first person to catch Ben’s eye was a waif-thin blond vampire with round blue eyes and a worried expression.
“That is Tatyana.” Radu caught the direction of his gaze. “The newborn who’s on the run from Oleg.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t need to.” Radu smiled. “I like her. She has a very Russian sense of humor.”
“Hmm.” Ben saw an older man with a pocked face and olive-brown skin sitting on his own. More correctly, the man was sitting in an isolated pocket of introversion while humans and vampires tried to tempt him with something he ignored. “Let me guess,” Ben said. “Darius?”
“Yes, that is Darius.”
“If these vampires are the ones you’ve narrowed down, how did you get them all here?”
“I sent them an invitation.”
Ben blinked. “And they just arrived?”
“I made excuses of course.” His eyes shifted. “Now, Fynn is an interesting case.”
“The Nazi vampire?” Ben didn’t know if he was guilty of the goblet theft, but everything about the man told Ben he was scum.
He was wearing a suit the color of oatmeal in the middle of the forest and flicking the servers away from him with a casual disregard that Ben found enraging.
“Please tell me he’s paying a lot of money,” Ben muttered.
“I cannot tell you exact details, but he’s paying a substantial amount.” The corner of Radu’s mouth turned up.
“Good.” Ben liked Radu more for the half smile. It told him Radu was milking Fynn, and that made him happy. “The woman near Tatyana?”
“Madina,” Radu said. “Very smart. Very opportunistic. She was getting a little too imperialistic according to rumors, so Arosh asked her to leave Samarkand.”
“He asked her?”
“He asked her… forcefully. I believe she accepted my invitation so quickly because the offer of safe haven was appealing.”
“Good.” This was the kind of information he needed more of. “Why would she steal the goblet?”
“I have two theories: pure greed or leverage.”
“Greed is greed, but leverage?” Ben looked at Radu. “What does she want from you?”
“Safe haven for now, and later? Possibly a new community to rule? She comes from nomads too. I don’t think being terrin of the Poshani would be undesirable to her.”
“If she wanted to use the goblet as leverage, wouldn’t she have approached you by now?”
“Shehasapproached me.”
“With the goblet?”Why am I here then?
“No, with sex. She made a sexual advance toward me.”
