“What are you saying, Serena?” Val’s voice was low, controlled, and for the first time, she heard the Aegis warrior he was.
“My cloak was compromised,” she admitted. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry. It’s repaired now, but it was down for a time.” Now she had to hope whatever was wrong with her charm would be as easily fixed.
“You need to come home. Forget about the Aswan artifact.”
“I’m already on the train.”
“You will get off in Cairo and catch the first flight back.”
She gazed out the window at the harsh yet beautiful landscape, a mix of golden sand and graceful trees, and shook her head. “I’m perfectly safe. And Josh is with me.”
“Josh? Why?”
“Val, come on. He was a Guardian. Who better for me to travel with?” She could practically hear the top of Val’s head blow off. Time to go. “Wow, the static is terrible. I should hang up. I’ll call you when I get the tablet.”
“Wait—”
She severed the phone link by mashing the End button with her thumb. Just to be safe, she turned off the phone completely and headed for the dining car.
Nerves, from the tense conversation with Val and from the anticipation of seeing Josh, turned her stomach into a churning cauldron. But when she saw Josh smiling at her from a table, she wondered why she’d been anxious.
Something about that devastating smile just made her go all mushy inside. She’d never been one for tattoos, but the swirling design on his face suited him, with its angular twists and whorls and dark, sharp edges. One pointed end kissed the very corner of his mouth, and she pictured herself putting her lips to his and following the tattoo until it ended at his fingertips.
He stood—awkwardly, almost as though doing so was an afterthought—and waited for her to sit before taking his own chair again. He was already halfway through a glass of whiskey, and he’d ordered her one as well. Very thoughtful.
She downed it. “I called Val.”
“Did you tell him you have demons after you and your artifact?” He took a swig of his drink, and as his throat muscles worked the liquor down, Serena realized for the first time that a man’s neck could be damned sexy. Maybe she could have one of those dreams like she’d had last night, only this time, she could be the vampire.
“Yes, I told him.” She shot him a wry look. “So your blackmail material is ruined.”
His grin made her pulse leap. “Don’t need it. Now you want to hang out with me all on your own.”
“Are you even aware of how cocky you are?”
“Do I really need to answer that?” He stroked his long fingers up and down the glass, and she suddenly wanted him to do the same to her. After a moment, he pushed the whiskey at her. “I think you need this more than I do. What did Val say?”
“He wants me to come home.”
“Are you going to go?”
“Heck no. Val’s paranoid.”
“Maybe he’s smart.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not you, too.”
He leaned back in his chair, his sinfully toned body sprawled out as though he didn’t have a care in the world, but the way his alert gaze kept checking out their surroundings said otherwise. She got the impression that a gnat entering the dining car wouldn’t escape his notice.
“So… what’s his story? Why does he act more like a father than a boss?”
She watched the liquor in the glass slosh around from the motion of the train. “He was a friend of my mom’s. After she died, he kept in contact with me, encouraged my love of archaeology. He’s an archaeologist,” she explained. “I went to Yale, where he taught, but college turned out not to be my thing. I was getting sick of school, ready to drop out, and he hired me for his private archaeology foundation. He offered me a place to stay at his mansion, and I would have been stupid to turn it down.”
Josh’s eyes narrowed into slits. “What’s the catch?”
“Catch?”
She could have sworn she heard a low snarl come from his side of the table before he spoke.
“No man offers a tight young bod like yours a place to stay without wanting something in return.”
Tight bod? She laughed. “Trust me, he has no interest in me. Not like that. You said it yourself: He’s like a father.”
“Why?” he repeated.
She shrugged. “I think it’s partly because we have a lot in common.” Namely, she was the only person working for him who knew the truth about his and David’s Aegis connections, and he was one of only a handful of people who knew the truth about her. “And partly, it’s because he’s kind of felt obligated to watch out for me.”
“What does your real dad have to say about that?”
“I never knew him.”
“Was he a tomcat who ran around impregnating every female he saw, and your mother was unlucky enough to get taken in by him?”
“Do I sense some paternal issues?”