“He will survive a beating. He has many times,” Stefan said, taking her hand.
“Let me out of this chair. I need to teach her how to mask her thoughts. I have a suspicion of who the third person was. Let me out now!” Ricardo demanded. Margarita removed the silver cuffs, but left him tied down. He stared at Elena for a moment, then disappeared, leaving the empty net and ropes intact.
She spun around to find him sitting up in the cockpit. What the hell? He could have teleported out of the bindings at any time.
“No,” he answered. “The elven cuffs kept me from teleporting. And the bindings prevented me from grabbing you and biting you back—because I would have. I did my duty so that you can do yours,” he said over the hum of the motors. Then he said something else, but she couldn’t quite hear him.
“What?”
He motioned for her to approach. She did so, tentatively.
“That is exactly how it works. Extra noise blocks the words. It’s like humming in your head. Hell, you can really hum if you want to. It will muffle your thoughts. Try it. Think of something specific while you hum and let’s see if I can hear it.”
Stefan slid into the pilot’s seat. She started humming, then thought of how she needed to change in to cold weather gear before they landed in Romania.
He turned in his chair to face her. “Excellent. I only got humming and a couple of syllables. Get in the habit of doing that now, before you get there. Soon, you will not need to hum out loud, but for the time being, it’s safer that way. You can sing, too, if you want to. It jumbles all the thoughts you transmit.”
She settled back in her chair next to Margarita, but he continued staring at her. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled and turned back around. He was terribly handsome, and with that accent, Elena was sure he had the choice of any woman he wanted. He shot a look over his shoulder at her and arched a brow.
Shit. She immediately began to hum “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
She didn’t remember drifting off, but Elena awakened to the plane motors growing louder and louder, and then the plane pitched hard to the right as it banked into a turn. Something was wrong.
“He’s landing at a small, private landing strip in the mountains,” Margarita explained. “Nothing is wrong.”
“Can you read minds, too?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s a very rare talent. Only the oldest and strongest vampires can do it. Less than half a dozen, probably.”
Her brother didn’t look older than thirty. “He’s one of the oldest vampires?”
She smiled. It was clear she was proud of her brother. “Ricardo is special. He was born with the gift.”
“I bet that made it tough growing up.”
She grinned. “A pain in the ass. But I effectively block him all the time now.”
The plane banked even harder, and Elena checked her seat belt. In the cockpit, Stefan seemed calm and collected. Maybe this was normal.
“I can hear you,” Ricardo shouted to her over the increasing motor noise.
Elena hummed an indistinct tune as the wheels roughly touched down and she bounced in her seat several times. The engines roared, and the plane slowed to a roll.
Stefan’s phone rang, and he put it to his ear. Elena couldn’t hear what he was saying over the plane noises. Eventually, they came to a stop, and she unbuckled. “I need to put on cold weather gear,” she said. “Being so cold sucked beyond belief, and I’m not going to let it happen this time.” She unzipped the bag and pulled out the warm clothes and jacket she had bought. While Stefan finished his phone call, she pulled the gear on over her clothes. Sliding on the Gore-Tex boots, she thought about how much better it would have been to be outfitted like this when she was in the cabin with Nik. If only she could have those moments back. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she remembered their time together. The long conversations, the incredible things he did to her with…
“I can hear you,” Ricardo practically shouted. “If you don’t learn to mask what you’re thinking, they could discover what he means to you. That he’s your weakness and you carry his child.”
“It’s too late,” Stefan said, sliding his phone back in his pocket. He unfastened his seat belt. “They already know she’s here. And they’re waiting for her. She can’t disembark. None of us can. The entire airport is full of Underveilers of all kinds. Someone tipped them off.”
Ricardo shot from his seat, and crouching to not hit his head, stormed toward his sister, whose eyes grew huge. “It’s that asshole weasel you work for. You told him where you were going, didn’t you?” He grabbed her by the throat with one hand.
She appeared calm. “No. I called in sick. He doesn’t know anything.”