Chapter One
They would know. How could they not know?
They were the wisdom of the ancient world; immortal warriors, scholars, and kings.
Nearly gods.
They would know, but he had no choice.
Fate had anointed this for him, though the act might—probably would—end in his death. Fate had given him one task to accomplish in his short, fleeting life. One gift he could give to the world, one song that must be heard.
She must be heard.
He was the only one, the only one who saw her dimming light. Unless he did this, she would die as he would, an insignificant human living an insignificant life. And he knew—he knew—she was destined for more.
The man stared at the golden seal before him. The luminous black pearl glowed with an inner fire, staring back at him from the dragon’s eye. Swirling milky-white-and-golden-brown jade surrounded the glowing dragon; intricately carved carp swam among lotus flowers and churning waves.
It was a priceless treasure.
No.
Everything had a price. Everything.
The man took a delicate hammer and chisel to the wood around the seal and methodically began to tap.
Chapter Two
Ben woke at dusk, the dark scent of his mate filling his senses. She surrounded him, her simmering amnis snapping in the air like electricity before a storm. Before he opened his eyes, he reached for her, and as their skin met, the spark snapped, then dissolved in the damp air of the river house.
“Did you sleep?” He kept his voice a whisper.
“A few minutes.”
He knew she usually slept longer but wasn’t surprised that her layers of armor hadn’t allowed her to dream. They were hours away from Penglai Island, formal seat of the Eight Immortals and home of their sire, Zhang Guolao.
They had arrived at the river house the night before, their last stop on the flight from the West Coast. They were going to Penglai for a celebration, but his mate was not in a celebratory mood.
He smelled the river that ran through the courtyard, the moss covering ancient stones, and the familiar aroma of bone broth simmering in the outdoor kitchen of their house in the water town east of Shanghai.
She moved over him, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck and filling her nose with his scent. He smiled because he knew what she smelled there, their joined blood and amnis mingling until he could barely distinguish one from the other.
To Ben, his mate’s blood smelled of heady spices, honey, and cold winter air. She was Tenzin, ancient daughter of the northern steppe, commander of immortal armies, heir of an ancient king, and legendary vampire assassin.
She was also his mate, the woman who made him question his sanity nightly, and the most frustrating, maddening, and addictive vampire in existence.
“I want to have sex.” She sat up, straddling his hips. “Why are your eyes still closed? You’re not sleeping anymore.”
“I’m enjoying all my other senses.” His body was awake and his erection was pressed between them. He reached out and felt for her hips. She was naked from the waist down, but he felt the edge of a thin chemise fluttering against her skin. “This is nice. Silk?”
“Yes.” She shifted her hips, rubbing her body against his. “You’re being lazy.”
“No.” He kept his eyes closed, sliding his fingers up and taking the chemise with them. “I’m taking my time.”
She could be an impatient monster when it came to carnal appetites, and Ben loved to torment her. He played his fingers over her skin, the gentle rise of her breasts, the sensitive flesh of her inner arm, the slight curve of her belly. His fingers drifted down to the apex of her thighs and she shivered, surging forward until his fingers grazed her sex.
“No.” He laughed and pulled his fingers away, flicking his tongue to taste the hint of her before he gripped her hips and rolled them over, bracing himself over her and finally opening his eyes a second before he entered her body.
“Hello, mate.” He smiled at her expression.
Her eyes were clouded with pleasure, her mouth was open, and the edge of her fangs had nicked her lower lip.
Ben thrust his hips forward as he bent down and captured her blood, licking the spicy salt of it and sucking her lower lip into his mouth. He swallowed her groan and gripped a handful of her hair at the nape.
She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him deeper. Ben froze at the heady sensation of their bodies joined. He released her mouth and pressed his forehead to hers, their breath mingling as their bodies moved as one.
When they were joined like this, he couldn’t measure time. Moments were counted in breaths and tremors. Minutes passed with the flow of blood and pleasure that sparked beneath their skin like the immortal current of energy that kept them alive.
Sometimes her pleasure crested in a wave he eagerly followed, and other times his climax battered him with the force of a hurricane and she would chase it, forcing him to come again until she could match his pleasure with hers.
That night her climax rolled through her, lifting her chest as she flung her arms around his neck, pulled his throat to her mouth, and bit.
Pleasure blasted through his body, and he gave in to the pull of her lips on his skin and her fangs in his body as he found his release.
Take it. Take it all. If she killed him in that moment, it would be a fair death.
“I love you.” He breathed the words into the frenzied air around them. A canvas clapped against one wall, and the wooden shutters in the library slammed shut. Two wind vampires lost in the throes of sexual passion tended to create interior windstorms.
Tenzin pulled away after she sealed the wound on his neck. “I thought we secured everything after last time.”
“Must have missed a couple of things.” He rolled to his back and pulled Tenzin to drape over his body, running his fingertips over her back and watching the tiny hairs along her skin rise to his amnis everywhere he touched.
She murmured something in her mother tongue, and Ben forced himself to stay silent. He was slowly picking up a word here and there, mostly from studying modern Mongolian and other Altaic languages. He’d understand more after their two weeks in Penglai since Tenzin and Zhang usually argued in it when they wanted secrecy; they were the only two surviving speakers.
Or were they?
It had been months since the strange fire vampire in New Orleans had mentioned a name that froze Tenzin in a way he’d never seen before.
Temur.
The blood of Temur remembers who you were.
Ben didn’t know if Tenzin realized he’d heard the strange Russian vampire shout the phrase. He hadn’t asked her about it, but he’d felt the spike in her amnis and the ensuing violence of her furious wind.
The blood of Temur.
She’d been restless and moody since they’d returned from New Orleans, and now they were headed to one of Tenzin’s least favorite places in the world—her father’s fortress island temple, Penglai.
The past wasn’t past. In that moment, it was very much the present.
Ben and Tenzin landed in the interior courtyard of Zhang’s compound on the island, the living quarters of each elder determined by territory and element, though each was given the same amount of space to signify their equality in political status.