None of our mothers had much choice about conceiving, but at least they didn’t discard us.” She paused, remembering to breathe. “We have a unique place in the Enclaves, and a purpose. What about you?”
“If I had no purpose, I would not be here.”
“So even though you’re an outsider, you’re loyal to your masters.”
“As loyal as you are to yours.” His expression, previously so mild, went cold. “Tell me, how much choice did you have in becoming an agent of your city, risking your life every time you leave it?”
“How much choice were you given to be what you are?”
They stared at each other. Eventually Damon shook his head.
“I have suggested a course of action,” he said. “Do you intend to release me?”
Alexia shouldered her gun and crossed the space between them, every sense alert. She used her own key to unlock the cuffs. The moment he was free she jumped well out of his reach. He stretched his long legs and rubbed his wrists just as if he could feel pain and discomfort as much as any human being.
“What about your partner?” he asked, gathering himself to rise. “Do you expect him to rejoin us, or is he likely to move on his own?”
“If you mean will he attack you, no. He won’t endanger me.” She watched him intently as he got to his feet, her eyes drawn once more to the litheness of his body and the assurance of every move he made. Why, in God’s name, wasn’t she feeling the disgust and contempt she should have felt at the mere sight of him?
Because it was something else she was experiencing, both physically and emotionally. Something she couldn’t begin to understand.
She hated it.
“What about your people?” she asked before her emotions could escape her rigid control. “Do you expect me to believe that Erebus hasn’t sent more than one operative to observe the colony?”
“It seems likely,” Damon said, “but as we generally work alone, I would not know the nature of their assignments.” He brushed the dirt from the front of his pants. “I would advise you to tell Agent Carter not to compromise your mission by approaching the colony alone.”
“You know wireless communication is forbidden in the Zone,” she told him.
Which wouldn’t have made any difference to agents from either side, except that both the Enclave and the Citadel scrambled all signals outside their borders. She might be able to get through to Michael, but the odds were against it. He’d have to find a way to keep close enough to help her if she needed it, but far enough away to avoid making Damon too nervous.
“May I collect my weapons?” Damon asked.
Back to that damned politeness. Alexia jerked her head in permission, though every instinct was screaming in protest. Damon searched among the bushes, found the knife and pistol, returned the knife to a sheath at his back and tucked the pistol into some inner pocket of his uniform jacket.
“That’s it?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “You must have other weapons.” He straightened and zipped up his jacket, though the weather was warm and he probably didn’t react to changes in temperature any more acutely than she did.
“I left them some distance from here, along with my pack,” he said. “I will retrieve them on the way to the colony.”
“I assume you know the way?”
He stood facing her, unmoving, legs braced slightly apart. “Don’t you?” he asked.
Now he was testing her. “Let’s not play games. You’ve tried to make us believe that your Council hasn’t known about the settlement all along, but that’s a little difficult to believe given that it’s less than two klicks away from the Citadel’s western border. It’s not exactly hidden, is it?”
“I see you do have some information already,” he said, deflecting her question. “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