“Perhaps Aegis has sent other operatives before you.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“The first concrete intelligence on the colony was provided to the Council by an operative less than a month ago.” He hesitated, frowning with what appeared to be uncertainty. “It is possible the Expansionist Faction were aware it existed before that time.”
Alexia didn’t believe for a moment that he hadn’t rehearsed that line very carefully.
“Hasn’t it occurred to you the Expansionists also set it up right under your Council’s noses?” she said.
“No. This was done quietly, by those who did not expect to be noticed. Or missed.”
“Like your Freebloods and the cast-off human serfs no one in Erebus wants. But you’ve admitted the Council has been aware of the colony for a month, and they still haven’t done anything about it.”
An inscrutable look flitted across his face. “The first agent was able to tell us very little.
He died soon after he made his report.”
“That’s unfortunate,” she said with false regret.
“He was fatally injured in the Zone by an unknown assailant. The one who attacked him was a professional and used a weapon forbidden in Erebus.”
Alexia stiffened. “What are you suggesting?” she asked. “That one of our people killed him?”
“The weapon was the one you call ‘Vampire Slayer,’ such as the one you carry strapped to your pack,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.
“The killing of hostile agents isn’t permitted except in cases of self-defense,” she retorted.
“Yes,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. “We are only spies, after all, tasked to make certain the buffer zone is maintained. But it would not be the first time an agent of either side has died between the Borders.”
Not the first time, Alexia thought, and certainly not the last. There had been at least one dhampir fatality in the Zone each year since the Treaty had been signed, the latest Michael’s former partner. Such facts could not be openly acknowledged by either side.
But dhampir agents were hardly a renewable resource, and they weren’t casually sent on missions to assassinate enemy operatives for no good reason.
“Even if I believed one of ours did it,” she said, “I wouldn’t tell you.”
“I wouldn’t expect it,” he said. “Just as you won’t expect to learn anything from me that my superiors don’t want you to know.”
So he was confirming that everything he said to her was calculated to achieve a certain goal. Not that she’d ever doubted it.
She smiled back at him, baring her teeth. “I guess we understand each other,” she said.
“After you...”
Without a word he turned and set off north, moving almost soundlessly now that he had no need to be heard.
Alexia followed close on his heels. He was giving her the chance to shoot him in the back, but nothing in his posture suggested that he was worried. She kept half an ear out for Michael, but he must have decided to stay out of range of her senses, or Damon’s.
Just as well.
They traveled quickly over once-occupied land that was gradually reverting to its original state, hiking up and down oak-studded hillsides and avoiding the valleys with their decaying suburbs and open streets. Damon picked up his rifle and pack after they’d gone a few miles, securing the weapon to the back of his pack as a sign of “good faith.”
There was no further sign of human or vampire presence until they reached the summit of a hillside overlooking what had once been known as the Bennett Valley.
Most of the fields and vineyards below had long since become overgrown with native grasses, shrubs and scattered trees, but there wasn’t any mistaking the nature of the several green rectangles that marked out the deliberate cultivation of crops. They had not been created for Nightsiders, who had no need to rely on such food sources, but for their human “property.” At the opposite side of the valley, tucked up against the foot of the low Sonoma Mountains, stood a high, rectangular wall guarding a compound of buildings—twelve or thirteen according to Alexia’s count, suggesting the presence of as many as a dozen Nightsiders and perhaps three or four times as many humans.
The sight both chilled and infuriated her. She glanced at Damon, who crouched beside her with his own binoculars in hand, almost as if she expected the same reaction from him.
Of course that was ridiculous. He was from Erebus. What disgusted her would be perfectly natural for a leech. This was only a job to Damon. There was nothing personal in it.
She couldn’t afford to make it personal, either. Not if she wanted to keep her head...and her life.
Alexia pulled off her pack, and Damon did the same. “How do you want to do this?”
she asked him. “If we split up here, you can go around from the north and I’ll approach from the south.” She glanced up at the sky, noting the angle of the sun. “We don’t have much daylight left. Let’s rendezvous tomorrow morning at 0900 hours on that hill directly east of the colony, by the rock formation. Whoever gets there first will wait for the other. Agreed?”
Damon lowered his binoculars. “Agreed,” he said. He met her gaze, his own unreadable. “I trust you’ll keep your partner from killing me if he rejoins you?”
“I already told you. He won’t do anything rash, unless you—” The report of an automatic weapon cut her off, and she flung herself flat on the ground. Damon was down beside her a second later. Bullets whizzed over their heads and struck the tree trunk just behind them.
“Someone,” Damon said, “does not want us here.”
Chapter 3
Alexia smothered a cynical laugh. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
As much as he detested his own feelings, Damon couldn’t help but admire her. He had done so from their first meeting, when she’d played it so cool in the face of her partner’s intransigence.
All feigned, of course. Not her courage—he had no reason to doubt that—but certainly Carter’s fury. No trained agent of Aegis would be so flagrantly emotional when facing the enemy. It had all been an act for his benefit.
Just as he was putting on an act for the dhampires, doing his best to make them believe he didn’t hate everything they stood for.
But not Alexia herself. Lying so close beside her, he could inhale her scent, both floral and spicy, without the distraction of other smells. He breathed in deeply, tasting the air around her: the heat of her skin, the unique signature of the blood pulsing through her veins, and the faint female tang that stirred his body in a way he wanted very much to ignore.
Once again, as at the beginning, he was captivated by her beauty, her natural grace, the harmony of her movements. Not even the bulky camouflage fatigues could conceal how extraordinary she was. Her sleek, slender figure, strong and utterly female at the same time, was as perfect as that of the most beautiful Opir female. Her hair was the color of her namesake’s fur, her skin honey-warm in the light of the dying sun, her green eyes with their oval, almost catlike pupils vivid and fearless.
If it hadn’t been for all those compelling qualities and a hundred more uncounted, he might have continued to forget that he had once been capable of wanting a woman. But she had made it impossible for him to take any further comfort in that denial. Or in the solitude he had learned to embrace over the past two decades.
Lifting his head a little, Damon peered in the direction from which the shots had come.
The shooter wasn’t in the valley; Damon estimated that he or she must be hidden somewhere in the hills on the other side.