Page 38 of Captured

“That promontory, with the beacon.” She pointed to the west with the hand that held thetsipouro. “Your sister was telling me about it today.”

As she’d planned, Dimitri’s manner immediately sobered. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for that, but she barreled on anyway. “She said that wreckage washes up on shore there sometimes.”

“My sister, she talks too much,” Dimitri said. But he was looking out at the promontory now as well. “She told you, I’m sure, of the wreckage in particular I’m searching for?”

“From Ari’s plane.” She tried to pick out his expression in the darkness, couldn’t. “Have you ever found anything?”

“Not enough to matter. The royal plane had many distinguishing characteristics and many identifying marks against such a tragedy. But when a plane crashes, it doesn’t always fall into the ocean in one piece. An explosion could have disintegrated it. The engine could have kept working for a short while even if other systems failed, dropping in a different location from the rest of the plane. There are too many possibilities to fathom.”

“Yet you keep looking.”

He nodded. “I keep looking.”

“What will you do if you find something, though—a scrap of metal that, what—tells you that Ari crashed near here and not near Thassos? How will that help you?”

Dimitri took another long pull of his drink. “It’s a good question. Perhaps I’ll convince myself that he has died, once and for all. Perhaps I’ll have the closure that the few bits and scraps of metal thathaveturned up haven’t given me. Perhaps I’ll have someone—or something—to blame, finally. When you have no answers, you have too many possibilities. I’d prefer those possibilities to be fewer.” He shrugged. “I suppose I won’t know until I see it, yeah?”

“Could we go down there?” Sensing immediately that she’d asked the wrong thing, Lauren hastened on. “If we’ll be here that long. We may not be, which is fine. Never mind. We don’t have to go.”Shut up, shut up!She blushed hard as she tried to quiet her unruly tongue. Beside her, Dimitri had fallen silent. Not the silence of someone who was angry, either.

The silence of someone who was curious.

A curious Dimitri was not a good thing.

He verified that with his next words. “Why do you want to see the cove? I intrigue you this much, princess?”

She gave him her haughtiest look, pretty sure the effect was lost in the gloom. “I’m stuck on this rock for, what, another day—day and a half? We have to do something.”

He didn’t hesitate. “It seems that we found a worthwhile distraction already.”

“Well, we’ve done that already, so it’s time for something new.”

Laughter rumbled deep in his voice. “And you don’t think you would be interested in a second opportunity?” he asked quietly. “I could change your mind.”

Her scoffing reply sounded impressively derisive, at least. “Doubtful.” She turned away from him so he couldn’t read anything in her expression. “I’d be far more interested in learning more about this cove that has fascinated you so. You’ve certainly found a few things, yes? Do you keep them in your house?”

He shifted beside her. “The ones that seemed relevant, sure. The others I left along the shoreline or gave to the local bar owner down there. There’s a secondary dock near the promontory, where the boats bring in their weekly hauls—more frequently if they are overloaded, but they are rarely overloaded early. It is not an easy life, fishing. But it’s a good one.”

“Well, it can’t be all that great. You left it for the military.”

He shrugged. “Again, I know what I excel at. Or maybe you’ve forgotten that already.”

Twenty-Four

Stop baiting the woman.

But Dimitri couldn’t help himself. He leaned closer to Lauren as she gave another short laugh, reveling in the heat of her, exactly what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do when they’d arrived here this evening. Tonight was supposed to be about rebuilding the emotional distance between them and giving her the illusion of freer rein. He had a completely unreasonable desire to build a cage around her, protect her, but she wasn’t his property, she was his assignment.

And then there was the sex. Which had definitely not been a part of the assignment. But damn, it should have been. Nevertheless, he knew without being ordered that he had no right nor place to have anyrealinterest in Lauren.

But he did. May the gods help his sorry ass, he did.

The idea of holding her in his arms once more, tasting her skin, reveling in the sheer glory of her body was enough to drive him mad. If he didn’t maintain his distance, or at least keep his demigod nature in check, he was going to cripple the woman before he got her safely back to Oûros. And that would serve none of their purposes.

So they’d all be better off if he kept his focus on the mission. Fortunately, she’d made that easy enough.

He’d found her phone, of course—Alexi’s phone, more accurately stated. And though his sister believed these phones were burners, they were all linked back to Dimitri. Once he’d had it in hand, he was able to cross-reference the right phone with the right account, and confirm that Lauren had reached out to Emmaline.

So she knew about him, almost certainly. Knew, but likely didn’t believe.

---