“Mr. Smith…” I started then paused. Toying with Danaus was too easy, and I struggled to keep from smiling and exposing my fangs. After the unexpected debacle of last night, I need something to lighten my mood. “This is my assistant, Charlotte Godwin,” I continued, motioning toward the petite woman seated next to him.
Charlotte extended her hand, but Danaus only nodded at her then turned his glare on me.
“We are dropping Ms. Godwin off a couple blocks from here. She decided to tag along in an attempt to get me to look over some papers before our trip.”
“It’s just that you are so hard to pin down for a meeting, Ms. Jones,” chided the slender brunette with chocolate-colored eyes. Her words slipped through the limo with a sweet, Southern drawl. She wore a mint green suit, very composed and professional, and her long fingers grasped the stack of papers in her lap.
My gaze drifted back to Danaus, and he arched one eyebrow at me when she mentioned my surname. So they were obvious fakes; that was half the fun. It gave sweet little Charlotte something to sweat about when she lay awake at night.
With an indifferent wave of my hand, I attempted to brush off the topic. “It’s completely unnecessary. You have everything well in hand.”
“But the investors are demanding to know why you won’t approve the mining expedition in Peru,” Charlotte countered.
“They want to go digging in the Sacred Valley, and I won’t have it. If they want to load up on the sweat of the sun, tell them to pick another country. Try Chile,” I said. Gazing out the window, I watched as the city slid by in a motley of lights and color. I was part of a consortium of investors that ran a gold-mining company. We had made a great deal of money so far, and now they wanted to venture into the heart of the Incan empire. They had set their sights on some mountains in the shadow of Machu Picchu. I wanted nothing to do with it.
“They won’t be happy.” Charlotte’s soft voice intruded on a set of less than happy memories.
“Tell them to take it up with me.”
Charlotte quickly broke eye contact, looking back down at the stack of paperwork in her lap. Luckily for her, the limo pulled over to the sidewalk again in front of a set of office buildings in the heart of downtown. Charlotte maintained offices both in Savannah and Charleston, where she generally reigned supreme until she had to check in with me.
It had to be frustrating. She had her own assistants and made multi-million-dollar decisions on a daily basis. Most of it was my money, though she did run a few other partnerships that I was involved in. But for all she accomplished, she was still forced to jump when I asked. Last night, I’d called at four in the morning from my town house as I waited for Barrett to awaken, and demanded that she make arrangements for the trip. And I knew that Charlotte had most of it completed by dawn. No matter how high she rose or how much money she acquired, she would still be my flunky.
The delicate brunette with the pale rose complexion tidied up the papers, drawing in a deep breath. “I hope you have a good trip. I have often wished to see the pyramids.” The words escaped her in a rush of air.
“Thank you,” I said. “I will contact you in a day or two to arrange for travel.”
Her head snapped up to meet my eyes again. “Back home?”
“Hopefully. You’ll hear from me.” She nodded and nearly leapt from the limo when the driver opened the door. My soft laughter followed her out of the vehicle and onto the street.
Danaus waited until the driver shut the door before speaking. “She doesn’t know?”
“No, she doesn’t know what I am. Her only fear is losing her job.”
“It’s more than that,” he corrected.
“Really?” I leaned back into the corner of the seat and stretched out my legs, crossing them at the ankle. Draping my left arm along the backseat, my index finger drew a lazy infinity sign on the slick leather. “What else does she fear?”
“Losing her soul.”
I laughed, letting my powers flare out from my body. It was like relaxing a muscle after holding it tensed for a long time. I tried to rein my powers in when I was in close quarters with Charlotte. Being human, she might not have been able to sense them, but that extra bit of self-preservation that all humans possess would have picked up something. She would know that something was slightly off about me.
Danaus flinched against the unexpected wave of power, his right hand flexing at his side. Being a hunter, I suspected he would have felt infinitely more comfortable with a dagger in his hand, but he’d kept up the act of being civilized in front of sweet Charlotte. In the front of the car, the sound of the driver climbing back behind the wheel snapped me from my amusement. I pulled my powers back into myself and sighed. While the pane of glass muffled our words, it would not have stopped power from eddying out beyond it.
We pulled back out into traffic and headed out of the city. I saw brief flashes of the river as we passed through wide intersections. I had scanned the area intermittently since awakening that evening, pushing my powers as far as they would reach. By sunset all the lycanthropes were outside the city limits and settled in the surrounding countryside, while all the nightwalkers were in the city. Barrett had even changed the hours of the restaurant temporarily so it now closed before sunset. As much as we both hated it, the boundaries had been drawn. When the naturi were once again defeated, Barrett and I would begin rebuilding the trust between the shifters and the nightwalkers.
“We’re going to Egypt?” Danaus asked.
“I had hoped to keep it a surprise.” I let the silence sink into the car for a moment, trying to see if I could get him to demand more information, but he was proving to be a very patient creature. “We are flying to Luxor with a brief layover in Paris. From there, we take a barge down the Nile to Aswan.”
“A car would be faster from Luxor, or why not fly straight to Aswan?”
“True.” I nodded, my gaze darting back to my restless fingers and their infinity sign. “But you are now traveling with a vampire, and certain…rituals must be observed. I am entering the territory of an Elder and must move slowly as a show of respect. You never go directly into the known domain of an Ancient. It’s a sign of aggression.”
“I thought you said Jabari was dead?”
My eyes jerked back to Danaus’s face, studying his intent expression. “So you didn’t kill him. I doubted the rumors.”
“I was in Egypt briefly, but I have never seen Jabari.” His shoulder-length hair hung close to his cheek, casting dark shadows about his eyes.
“I don’t know what to expect,” I said with an elegant shrug, as my eyes strayed to the window. After you reach a certain age as a nightwalker, you can make almost any gesture seem elegant. It’s part of the package. “Jabari has disappeared. I don’t seek him, but I think he may have left some valuable information behind; journals describing the seal and the triad. It’s a starting point. However, I think it would be wise if we proceed with caution. If he does appear, I would prefer to remain in his good graces.”
“My presence will not help that endeavor.”
“No, it will not.” There was no reason for me to tell him that I intended to hand him over to Jabari and/or the Coven if necessary. Let them extract the information his brain held. I would have preferred to handle it myself, but there was no time to waste on my own interests. My domain was beginning to tear at the seams.
I looked down to find that I had unconsciously begun to fiddle with the silver band on my ring finger. The ring had been a gift from a lover years ago, etched with what looked like ocean waves. The Greek design whispered of old, half-forgotten memories.