Probably not.
Then again, the vampire was going to hand over a priceless piece of jewelry or artwork of Ben’s choosing in exchange for his help driving a truck and packing. It might have been more time than he’d planned on spending in China, but how dangerous could it be? All in all, he was happy with the deal.
Dinner could be his treat.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was close to two in the morning—middle of the night for humans, but the heart of the working day for vampires—when they met Cheng’s man in Ürümqi. Ben hung back, watching Tenzin from a distance as she talked with the vampire whose eyes kept flicking from Tenzin’s slightly hovering form to Ben as he leaned in a small doorway. Ben wore the dark shirt and jeans he’d worn to dinner and carried nothing on him that the vampire would easily detect.
The small knives at his waist had been acquired in the market from a shop above a metalworker who sold copper teapots on the ground floor. He’d quickly ushered Tenzin upstairs to show her the far more illegal offerings he sold to discreet customers. The revolver on Ben’s ankle wasn’t fancy, but it was serviceable. As for the more obvious firepower they’d bought, that had been stored back at the hotel. After they left the warehouse where they were meeting Cheng’s man, they would stop by the hotel, check out, and get on the road as soon as possible.
According to his phone, driving to Kashgar would take over twenty-three hours, so he was expecting to be on the road for at least two days. Tenzin assured him that the highway was clear, if winding, and they would have no problems traversing it.
Ben knew Tenzin didn’t know jack shit about roads, so he wasn’t taking anything for granted. Still, she’d also told him that much of the fresh produce in China was grown in the Kashgar region, which made the likelihood of passable roads more probable. From what he could tell, the major highways in China were as good as those in the US. Massive amounts of commodities traveled thousands of kilometers every day by truck. One small vegetable delivery truck would hardly garner much notice.
The truck Cheng had given them told Ben that the vampire who’d loaned it was either a very good smuggler or a very real businessman. Possibly both. More of a delivery truck than a semi-rig, it was small enough that Ben would be able to drive it, big enough to hide the crates that Tenzin said they’d need, and just banged up enough to look like every other truck on the road. No fancy logos decorated the outside, but a very official set of characters and numbers were visible on the back.
He saw Tenzin frowning at the papers the vampire handed her. Would she know what to look for? He’d called Caspar earlier to double-check the research he’d done online. He knew there should be a forged commercial license for him, along with several different permits for each province they’d have to pass through. The paperwork made Ben nervous. There was so much and Tenzin, for all her expertise, was complete and total crap at understanding paperwork. Ignoring her earlier instructions, he walked over.
He spoke in Latin this time. “What is it?”
He held out his hand for the papers, and with an amused look, she handed them to him. They were all in Mandarin.
Of course they were. Shit.
Speaking Chinese was one thing. Reading and writing was completely different. And Ben’s reading definitely qualified as “appalling.”
Tenzin barely glanced at him and continued talking with the other vampire, who held out an envelope. It looked like linen paper sealed in intricate fashion, a distinctive stamp pressed into rich red wax on both sides with a small jade bead making up the center of the stamp. Tenzin glanced at it, then put it in her pocket.
Cheng’s man fired off rapid Mandarin that Ben had a hard time following. He thought the vampire was offering to hire them a driver—for a small extra fee, of course—but Tenzin immediately held up a hand.
“No, no, no,” she said, more slowly. “I prefer my own driver.”
“You don’t trust Cheng?” There was a gleam in the vampire’s eye. “I’m sure he would prefer his own driver for the truck. A gesture of consideration, of course.”
Tenzin’s mouth curled up at the corners, her eyes warmed, and Ben had to keep his mouth from dropping open.
It was the most unabashedly seductive smile he’d ever seen on her face.
“Oh, Cheng knows exactly how much I trust him. And so do you, Kesan.”
Ben recognized the tone of her voice, he’d just never heard it from her.
But that smile was unmistakable, and now Ben wondered just who Cheng was to Tenzin.
He didn’t think of that part of her life. Or the lack of it. He’d known she’d been mated to Beatrice’s father, but it had been a political marriage. Wasn’t it? He’d never seen her with a lover. Never seen her even show any interest in a man. Or a woman. Not with that kind of smile on her face.
Her body language still telling a story he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear, Tenzin said, “Tell Cheng not to worry. If we have problems, he can be sure I will have my human get in touch with Jonathan.”
His heartbeat had picked up, and he saw Tenzin’s head angle toward him. She’d heard it, which meant the other vampire had, too.
Ben cursed himself silently. Any unexpected change in his pulse was something he’d been trained to control since he was a boy. Vampires might seem like genteel creatures, but at the heart, his aunt and uncle had never let him forget they were predators.
And predators chased prey.
“Do not become prey, Benjamin. Because if you do, you will be chased. And you will be caught.”