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My mouth widened in the kind of smile you give when you’re so goddamned relieved you’d smile at anything. “You’re not, sweetheart. You’re tough as goddamned nails. And I thank Lilith for it.”
Twilight arrived soon after. The water was too shallow to bring the motorboat in, so she set anchor and started rowing toward us in the dinghy.
Cain appeared on the cliff above, scrambling down the rocky face and landing on the beach a few meters away from us. He took one look at Eden, wet and shivering in my arms, and said, “What can I do?”
“Help Twilight bring the dinghy in.”
“On it.” Cain waded into the surf, grabbing the small boat by a D-ring on its side and towing it the rest of the way onto shore.
Twilight leapt out and hurried toward us. “You okay?” She frowned at Eden’s bruised cheek.
“Y-yeah,” Eden said.
“She’ll be okay, but she’s cold.” Cuddling Eden to my chest, I strode past Twilight to the dinghy. “I need to get these wet clothes off her as soon as possible and warm her up.”
Brien rinsed the blood from his face and hands and joined the others on the shore as I climbed into the dinghy with Eden.
Twilight pointed at Eden’s cheek. “You stake the bloodsucker who did that to her?” she asked Brien.
“Yeah.” He jerked his chin at the pile of ashes on the boat deck. “That’s what’s left of him.”
Twilight’s smile showed a little fang. “Good man,” she said, and, grabbing Brien by his blood-soaked shirt, pulled him in for a kiss.
Meanwhile, Cain shoved the dinghy back into the water with me and Twilight in it. “I’ll take you to the boat,” he said, swinging over the side and taking up the oars. To Brien, he said, “The dinghy’s too small for all of us. We’ll come back for you two.”
Our primus took his mouth from his mate’s long enough to say, “We’ll be here,” before going back in for another kiss.
“Careful,” I called. “Eden says there may be another trap.”
He waved a hand in acknowledgment.
On the cliff the fire danced, a gleeful red and orange. The harsh smoke scratched at my nostrils. A sudden burst of wind caught the embers and scattered them like confetti over the dark waves. They sparkled gold, then winked out.
My mouth turned down. “Esposito’s body is in there,” I told Cain.
“Yeah?” He shook his head and kept rowing. “Nobody got out. I waited, just in case.”
“He was already dead when we found him. They drained him.”
Eden stirred. “He was your father, wasn’t he?”
Sperm donor. “Afraid so.”
“Lemaire,” she said. “It was Lemaire who drained him. He k-killed your dad because of me. B-b-because he h-helped me.”
“So Esposito was part of this?” Cain asked.
“H-he was the d-driver,” Eden said, shaking so hard her teeth knocked together. “But he helped me—”
“Shh.” I tucked her head into my shoulder. “You can tell us later.”
Cain put the oars down and stood up, grabbing the motorboat’s rail and bracing his feet apart to steady the dinghy. Shifting Eden to one arm, I pulled myself one-handed over the rail and onto the deck.
Cain went back for the others while I took Eden below deck and stripped off her sodden clothes, leaving her in her underwear. Dragging off my henley, I put it on her, then wrapped her in a couple of wool blankets. She sank onto the cabin’s lower bunk, watching listlessly as I removed my wet socks and combat boots.
The listlessness scared the piss out of me. I sat on the bunk with her on my lap, my back against the wall. I would’ve liked to turn on the heat, but on a small boat like this, the heater didn’t work unless the motor was running.
Eden’s shivering increased. I took her feet in my hands beneath the blankets, trying to warm them. They felt icy even to my vampire-cool skin.
