1
Ben Vecchio was a thief.
Tenzin swung the saber diagonally, but the thief blocked her with his own blade, a Japanese-forged katana she’d trained him on.
“You’re insane,” Ben shouted. “I didn’t eat your cannoli.”
“Then where is it, Ben?” She parried, forcing him to back up. “Did it just disappear? Did a mouse break into the refrigerator?”
A pink box that contained two cannoli and one cheese danish had occupied the refrigerator the night before. She’d risen from her meditation at nightfall. The danish had survived, but both cannoli were gone.
Ben growled as he blocked her relentless blows. “I am not responsible for your food, woman.”
Tenzin wasn’t a woman. She was a vampire. She didn’t survive solely on blood, but she also didn’t eat much.
She’d been waiting for the cannoli, and now it was gone.
He lunged right, tipping her off-balance and forcing her across the training mat. The first floor of their apartment contained a large training area, various weapons, and oddly enough, dance equipment for their new roommate.
“I’m telling you, I had one. I don’t know what happened to the other one. Why don’t you just eat the danish if you’re hungry?”
Tenzin’s eyes went wide. “The danish isn’t mine. The danish is Chloe’s. The cannoli was mine. Only one person loves cannoli more than me in this house.” She spun around and slapped the back of his thighs with the flat of her sword. “You didn’t even get rid of the evidence. You’re worse than a thief. You’re a bad thief.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Take it back.”
“No.”
He attacked. The room filled with the furious clashing blades of two enemies ignited by righteous fury. She forced herself to stay on the ground. Just because she could fly didn’t mean she would. Not when it would only draw complaints about the unfair advantages of being immortal.
Oh no. Tenzin wanted vengeance, and she didn’t want to hear Ben whining about it.
Blood or no blood? She decided she didn’t want to hear complaints from Chloe about cleaning up the training area, so she kept to slaps with the side of her blade.
“You’re a bad thief.” She taunted him with a slap to the bicep. “Slow.”
“Shut up.” He slapped back and her ass felt it. “I’m the fastest human you know.”
He was the fastest human she knew, but Tenzin wasn’t going to admit it. Ben was a human in an immortal world, and he did everything possible to even the playing field.
He practiced and trained relentlessly, carving his tall, lean body into a weapon as flexible and lethal as a rapier. He mastered martial arts from South America and Asia. He’d studied knife fighting with masters. He’d killed his first enemy at sixteen in defense of a friend, matched wits with emperors, and bargained with ancients.
“If you’re so fast, maybe you should have run out and gotten another cannoli instead of stealing mine.” She darted to the side, just escaping the blade that would have slapped the back of her knee.
Close.
Tenzin narrowed her eyes. That was the closest he’d ever gotten without her allowing it.
She jumped into the air and flew over his head, kneeing him in the right kidney and quickly punching her knuckle into the nerve above his elbow.
Ben grunted and fumbled his blade. “Cheater.”
“Thief.”
He dropped his shoulder and flipped her over. “It is the height of hypocrisy for you to be calling me a thief!”
Tenzin hit the ground and Ben was on her, straddling her hips with his knees and twisting her wrist until she loosened her grip on the weapon she carried.
Did she notice how broad his shoulders had become? Perhaps. Did she notice how lean his hips were and how penetrating his gaze was? Yes. She’d have to be blind not to see what an attractive man he’d become.
He still made her irrationally angry. “That was my cannoli.”
“Enough.” His normally affable expression was gone. It had been gone for months.
“Why would you buy me a treat and then take it for yourself?” she asked. “That makes no sense.”
“Because I didn’t.” He rolled off her and lay flat on the mat. “Don’t pick up that fucking sword again, or I’m gonna lose my last nerve. I swear it.”
She’d been hoping a good fight would perk him up, but it seemed to have only annoyed him. And his lip was bleeding.
Oops.
“What is wrong with you?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Were you just bored? I was trying to wrap my brain around this fucking Bucharest job, and you’re busting my balls about cannoli, for fuck’s sake.”
“Is it wrong that I kind of like it when your New Yorker comes out?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Tenzin couldn’t stop the smile.
Ben stood, reaching a hand out to help her up before he grabbed the katana and the dao they’d been fighting with, walked to the long racks at the edge of the training area, and put both weapons in their place. Then he grabbed a towel from the bench nearby.
Just one. Tenzin didn’t sweat.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “The Bucharest job is vexing you because Radu hasn’t given you all the information yet. You still don’t know who his sire is, so you don’t know if he has any siblings, so you don’t know if anyone else has a claim on that icon. Until you find out if he’s the only one with a claim, you’re not going to feel comfortable bending the rules necessary for this job. Conscience, Ben. It’s your greatest weakness.”
“I’m so glad you think so,” Ben muttered. “Radu’s not going to tell me who his sire is.”
“Then tell him you can’t help him.”
He wiped the towel across his forehead. “This would be our first job in Eastern Europe. And Radu knows every vampire between Prague and Tbilisi.”
“Radu is a pain in the ass,” Tenzin said. “Every vampire between Prague and Tbilisi knows Radu is a pain in the ass. We’re not going to lose face if we tell him we don’t want the job.”
“The finder’s fee on this one is healthy. Giovanni encouraged me to say yes. He’s not officially my boss…”
“But he’s kind of your boss,” Tenzin replied. The jobs that she and Ben took were closer to the art world than the historical-documents world that Ben’s adopted uncle, Giovanni Vecchio, had worked in for centuries. But the concept was the same. If you were an immortal who’d lost something, they could help you find it. Ancient Tibetan scroll? Giovanni was your man. Medieval Russian icon? That was Ben and Tenzin’s department. “And Gio probably considers a job for Radu character building. He’s self-righteous like that.”
“But is he right?”
“Maybe. Do you really need your character built more?”
“According to my uncle”—Ben raised a familiar eyebrow—“character is a construction of eternity, an endless striving of the self to be subsumed to the greater good.”
Tenzin rolled her eyes, partly because Ben’s imitation of her old friend was just that good. “Ancestors, save me from philosophers.”