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“I always manage to bring mine with me.”
“Okay, but in other situations? Even to ask someone if the vampire you’re tracking has been there?”
When Jasmine was this tired, she didn’t want to have a longwinded conversation with anybody, certainly not about the tactics she used to track down rogues. She didn’t say anything to Stasio but headed into the bathroom and shut the door. Knowing Stasio probably wanted to use the bathroom too, she didn’t take long and when she left the bathroom to offer it to Stasio, she found him in the double bed closest to the windows, buried under the heather floral comforter already, watching her. Then she saw a long T-shirt featuring a Bengal tiger on the prowl on her bed. “A tiger? Really?”
He gave her a small smile. “I like tigers. I think you remind me of one. I picked it up at the Dallas Zoo. Thankfully, Levka had Ruric and Caitlin grab our bags from our rooms and leave them in the van.”
“I missed the memo, it seems.”
“If you want to wear that tonight, you’re welcome to.” Stasio folded his arms behind his head, looking perfectly relaxed when she was anything but.
“Thanks.” Sleeping in her street clothes didn’t appeal. She grabbed the T-shirt and returned to the bathroom, removed her clothes, then put on the shirt. When she left the bathroom again, she climbed into the other double bed and pulled the covers over her. She closed her eyes, hardly able to keep them open. “Good night, Stasio.”
“I know you’re not happy about any of this, but believe me, we’ll do everything we can to make you feel right at home with us.”
“Initiating me into your lifestyle. Right.” She couldn’t imagine being on the run all the time would make her feel right at home with them.
“Levka is right. You don’t have to stay with us. It’s your choice. Caitlin is another story. She had to be safe, and we made that happen. She would never have made it on her own.”
“Her witch’s spells—”
“It’s the consumption of blood that has been the issue for her. Besides the fact she can’t funnel her telepathic conversations to just us.”
“Right.” Jasmine kept forgetting Caitlin was newly turned. She hadn’t met anyone who was before.
“If you stay with us, Caitlin will enjoy having some female companionship, I’m sure.”
“I’m not sure we will have that much in common.” Jasmine was still wondering if there was a way to return to work as an assassin. Maybe somewhere else. Maybe another state. Or another country. Though that meant she might have to learn a new language, new league rules, and some might not like an outsider coming in to compete with them. Not to mention Pierre might try to follow her wherever she went to nab her contracts. But she could see him setting her up as a rogue and coming after her and the others for a nice tidy little assassin’s fee.
“If Pierre convinced my league that you and the others were here, would Scotland allow him to hunt for us here?” she asked.
“Like Wales, this is their own jurisdiction. So I wouldn’t think so. But if he does stir things up for us here, or anywhere else, we always have the option of just taking care of the matter.”
“Eliminating him.” Which would lock Jasmine into vampire rogue status without a doubt. “I was thinking I might be able to work somewhere else as an assassin. If we weren’t together, and if he was of a mind to do so, he would probably only come after me.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Once he has a nose for blood, I’m sure he would follow through with trying to take us down as well.”
That’s what Jasmine was afraid of.
* * *
Early the next morning,Jasmine left the bathroom to find Stasio watching her from bed. She was so tired from a sleepless night, worried Pierre or other assassins would be out to get them. She was used to being the hunter, not the hunted. “Did you sleep at all? I kept hearing noises, waking me, and I thought it was someone trying to break in. It seemed every time I looked at you, your eyes were wide awake too.”
“I probably had as much sleep as you had. I experienced the same trouble with worrying Pierre had come or alerted other assassins here in Scotland that we were in their territory and to terminate us.”
She sighed. “Bringing me along might mean more trouble for you than having Caitlin with you. You might live to regret the decision.”
Stasio gave her an elusive smile. “We live for danger.”
She snorted. “I was used to it, but only if I got paid for it.”
He smiled, then his expression turned serious. “Do you have any family remaining?”
She sat down on his bed. “An adopted brother from my mother’s family, who were hunters, so he’s a hunter. He’s actually a cousin, two years older than me, but raised as my brother. It seemed like fate put us on opposite sides with him being a hunter of rogues and me being a vampire. Thankfully he has always been supportive of me and encouraged me to become an assassin—essentially like he was, except I can only take down rogue vampires. He takes down rogue hunters also.”
“So you get along alright then?”
“Oh, I’ve gotten mad at him ever since we were turned, and I’ve been known to vanish and reappear in anger and flash my extended canines at him. But he usually just smiles and that knocks the anger right out of me. Brett, my brother, has the most charming smile. Totally disarming and charming. All the huntresses fall in love with him.”
