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“Probably expects you to cold cock me and make a break for it,” Nick said.
“Undoubtedly he does,” Luke agreed.
“So what do you actually have in mind? You didn’t drag me here just because it’s a cozy place to chat. And we still have over an hour before your furlough expires.”
“Indeed. Why waste the opportunity?”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Well?”
“Sara Constantine,” Luke said, the possibility of seeing her again too tempting to postpone.
Nick shook his head. “Luke, no. I know I suggested making her an asset, but you’ve got Tiberius in your court now. It’s not worth the risk. You’re a vampire. You’re the prime suspect in a murder. And you slept with her without telling her any of that. She’s not going to be inclined to be lenient and breaking the terms of the furlough to go see her won’t help.”
Luke rubbed his temples, then slowly nodded, not inclined to argue with his friend. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“I usually am.”
Luke chuckled. “I did have some other thoughts. Come with me. I have some information you should see.”
As he spoke, he moved to one of the two stone coffins in the tomb and began to shove aside the lid, releasing the thick stench of death.
“And we have to get there by crawling into a tunnel accessed by an empty grave?”
“You can dry clean the damn suit. Just hurry.”
“Fine,” Nick said, coming to Luke’s side and looking down with distaste at the contents of the coffin. But he saw no way into a tunnel.
“Where—” he asked looking up to see the apology on Luke’s face, even as his friend’s hand moved as fast as lightning.
He had time for only the merest flash of understanding before the hand connected, and black, liquid pain flooded his nose and face.
His knees went weak. The world swam in front of him. And the last thing Nick heard as he dropped into Luke’s arms was his friend’s murmured apology for doing exactly what Doyle had expected he’d do.
ChapterSixteen
Nick lay motionless at the bottom of the sarcophagus, remarkably at peace for a man who would soon wake in a fury. For that, Luke was sorry, but there was no other way. What he intended must be done alone.
He reached inside the coffin and removed Nick’s watch, which had already been set to count down the remaining furlough time. For a moment, he considered also taking Nick’s phone. After all, he needed to be careful, and Nick’s reaction to Luke’s betrayal was an unknown—a potential risk to not only his life, but to Tasha’s life and the lives of his friends as well. One call, and Nick could report Luke’s treachery. One call, and the stake poised over Luke’s heart would be triggered.
No.
He turned away, shamed that he could even consider the possibility of such perfidy. He left the phone in the pocket of the friend he trusted with his life, and never doubted that he’d made the right decision.
And then, with one last look at the man in the coffin, Luke slid the stone lid back into place. Then he pulled up one of the tiles on the floor to reveal the tunnel. He slipped inside and began to crawl, the putrid stench of death that surrounded him reminding him that he had once been human, too, his life marked by the minutes counting down to the day he lived no more, but instead lay in stasis and began to rot. Such a cruel trick was birth, he’d thought, inescapably tainting that gift of life with the horror of death.
And to him, a young man who had seen his mother and baby sister die in childbirth, who had watched his father fall from another man’s sword, death truly was a horror. A cruel taskmaster that came without warning, trying daily to cheat the living out of the gift bestowed at birth.
He had been eighteen when he heard rumors of a dark woman of timeless beauty whose kiss could grant eternal life. He had become obsessed, determined to find her and convince her to bestow her prize upon him. For seven long years he searched, but to no avail. As a soldier in the Roman army, he was afforded very little freedom, which limited his investigation to listening to the tales of travelers and interrogating other soldiers returning from duty in the far reaches of the empire.
So futile seemed his efforts, that in time he almost forgot his obsession, his thoughts turning more toward the lusty Claudia, a merchant’s daughter with whom he had fallen in love. He had taken her as his bride in the spring, and by the fall harvest she was heavy with child. When, months later, the midwife had placed the tiny Livia in his arms, Luke was deaf to those who urged that she was flawed. To him, she was perfect. He was the one who was weak. For he could never be strong enough or wise enough to fully protect this child, to make her healthy.
She grew slower than other children, each passing year seeming to drain her body of life. Though careful not to let the child see his fears, he nightly succumbed to the crippling horror that death would snatch her from him. He turned not to his wife for comfort, though, as his own impotence shamed him. Instead, he wandered the wheat fields after dark, the baleful sound of his anguish drowned out by the whisper of the grain in the wind.
Livia knew nothing of her parents’ fears, and though often confined to bed, her mind grew sharp and quick. By the time she was ten, sweet Livia had her doting father entirely under her control. Still, the joy that stole his breath when he looked upon the child was snuffed out by the fear that he and Claudia would be forced to bury her before the year was out. Her body, the physicians told them, was breaking down, and despite regular entreaties to the gods, her condition worsened daily. Fate, it seemed, had contrived to allow Luke only a taste of true happiness before ripping it brutally from his hands.
He recalled with perfect clarity the day his life had changed forever. Livia had been confined to bed, and both Luke and Claudia were sitting vigil at her side when they’d heard the thunder of hooves approaching. Luke had stiffened, imagining the rider was Death, come to bear his daughter away.
He need not have worried. Death was not coming then. Would not, in fact, come until Lucius himself invited it in.
