Margarita smiled. “I’m happy to meet again, Elena Arcos. Good to see you converted to your true form.” She gestured to the man next to her. “This is my brother, Ricardo.”
This was the rebel leader—the one who had picked up her father’s cause after he died. The man slid off his sunglasses, and she met his piercing, blood-red gaze. “An honor,” he said. His voice was as smooth and slick as his appearance.
She stared at him in awkward silence, waiting to find out what their objective was in coming to intercept her. The charge in her palms tingled.
The man searched her face with his unnerving crimson eyes, then took her chin in his fingers. She stood stock still as he stared into her eyes. “Fascinating,” he said. “There hasn’t been a Dhampir born in at least a century.”
“There are others?” she asked, barely above a whisper as he continued to study her eyes.
“Not anymore. The Revolutionists slaughtered every last one.”
“The Revolutionists are the factions of immortals who want the war in order to take power over the human world. They are Fydor’s followers, though that is a bit simplistic,” Stefan supplied.
Ricardo released Elena’s chin and put his sunglasses back on, then turned to Stefan. “You say she is Arcos’s offspring, but have no proof, Darvaak. It’s clear she’s a Dhampir, but I need evidence she’s truly the Uniter before I rally my people.”
Stefan remained very still and calm. “I told you she bears the mark.”
“Look, guys. I hate to cut you short, but I need to catch a plane right away…like yesterday.” She took off toward the security lines. Ricardo grabbed her by the arm. She placed her hand on his shoulder and released the current stored in her palm. He recoiled but made no sound.
Elena expected him to charge her, but instead, he just rubbed his shoulder. “Conserve energy. I’m not your enemy,” he said.
“Don’t grab me again.”
He nodded.
“Please, Ricardo,” Margarita said.
“Not until I see it.”
“My word isn’t good enough?” Stefan asked from where he leaned casually against the column.
“No. You could be like the others of your kind. No one’s word is good enough.”
“Oh, shut up,” Elena said. “I’m kind of in a hurry, and your squabbling is holding me back. What is it you want to see? The markings?”
Ricardo nodded.
Elena tugged at her T-shirt neckline, but it was too tight to show much of anything. Damn. She wished herself cloaked in the Veil, hoping she’d done it right. If not, she’d be giving some travelers and tourists something to write home about. She slid the backpack off and set it at her feet, then ripped off her shirt. “Yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Ricardo answered. “Almost.”
Almost? Oh. The sports bra. It covered a majority of the glyphs. Damn.
Human modesty,” Stefan said with a shrug and a half smile. “You had seemed to have gotten over it when I first arrived.”
After she scanned the area, it was clear from the men and women walking by without a glance that she was truly invisible because a shirtless woman in a hot pink sports bra would probably draw at least a little attention. Fine. She needed to put an end to this so that she could save Nik. She pulled off the bra and gritted her teeth when her breasts bounced.
Ricardo took off his sunglasses and made some kind of appreciative, growly sound. If it had it gone on any longer or been any louder, she would have shocked him into the next county. “Well, you are right, Darvaak. She is without a doubt the Uniter.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” Stefan said, circling to face her, eyes sweeping over her chest.
Yeah. My boobs are real interesting, asshole.
“Look down, Elena.”
She did. Holy shit. There were more of the odd shapes. They now expanded across her ribs and down to her navel. She gasped and met Stefan’s clear blue eyes. “What the hell?”
“What, indeed,” he remarked, still studying the markings.
She leaned over and grabbed her bra from the floor and yanked it on. “Spill, Stefan.”
He lightly ran his fingers over the markings across her ribs, and a grin crept across his face as he traced them to her navel. His touch wasn’t sexual, but affectionate. Reverent, almost. He splayed his hand across her abdomen and spoke in a strange language.
“Stefan! What the hell is going on?”
He opened his eyes and took her face in his hands. “Sweet girl. I am asking the powers that be to protect the child you carry.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elena rolled the words written on skin over in her head. “Guardian of the bridge between species above and below the Veil.” The child she carried was the “bridge,” Stefan had explained. Evidently, the meaning was clear in whatever freakish tongue the glyphs were written. She may be the Uniter who was prophesied to dethrone tyrants, but the child was the key to long-term peace.