"Hi," she said with a warm smile. "I hope I'm not interrupting. I brought some things from the café to tide you over until you can prepare a meal."
"That's very kind," Tamira said, accepting the basket. "Would you like to come in?"
"I don't want to intrude on your first evening in your new home, and I have more baskets to deliver." She motioned to the golf cart behind her. "Today should be all about resting and getting acclimated, but I figured that would be hard to do on an empty stomach." She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a card. "There are vending machines behind the café, so if you get hungry in the middle of the night because your stomachs are still operating on a different time zone, you can get a snack there. Use this card to make purchases."
"Thank you." Tamira put the card on the entry table.
When Wonder departed, Eluheed picked up the card and examined it. "Do you even know what it is?"
She frowned. "I lived in seclusion but not under a rock. I know what a credit card is. I've seen them in movies and read about them in books."
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her lips. "You de facto lived under a rock, and you were allowed only glimpses of what lay beyond it. Now the rock is gone, and you can see the entire world."
34
AREANA
Downtown Los Angeles was an urban center that Areana had only experienced through watching movies, and even those hadn't fully prepared her for the reality of it. She pressed her face closer to the SUV's window, craning her neck to look up at the impossibly tall buildings that seemed to scrape the sky.
Glass and steel towers rose on all sides, their surfaces reflecting the afternoon sun in blinding flashes. Cars filled the streets, so many cars that it boggled the mind. Strangely, though, there were almost no pedestrians. The sidewalks were mostly empty.
"Where are all the people?" she asked Jacki, who was sitting on the other side of Darius's car seat.
"No one walks in L.A.," Jacki said. "Everyone drives. It's too big, and the distances are too great to traverse on foot."
"I see." Areana kept watching the buildings outside the car window. "It is an enormous city. We've been driving for over two hours, and most of it was through an urban landscape."
"It's several cities combined," Carol said from the back row. "Not just Los Angeles, but it's one big urban sprawl."
As the ambulance in front of them slowed and turned into the driveway of one of the buildings, Kalugal followed.
"Is this it?" Areana asked. "The clan's keep?"
"Yes," Lokan answered from the front seat. "Before Kian decided to build the village, most of the clan members lived here. A fortress in the middle of the human world. Kian was a big believer in hiding in plain sight, but he wanted something better than steel and glass for his people. He wanted a place where children could play outdoors and not fear for their lives."
"Who lives here now?" Areana tried to imagine hundreds of immortals living in a single building, hidden among millions of humans.
It was actually a smart strategy as long as the immortals kept a low profile and didn't stand out in any way.
"Most of the apartments are rented out to humans," Carol said from the back seat. "The clan only retains the top three floors, the penthouse level, and the two floors beneath it, but the high-rise is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Most of the keep's facilities are located underground and span the entire block, not just under this one building."
"What's down there?" Areana asked.
"Classrooms," Kalugal said, navigating the SUV behind the ambulance. "Training facilities, a gym, a clinic, a pool, a theater…a dungeon."
Areana shivered. That was where she and Navuh would be staying, in the dungeon. Anandur had told her that they had asmall cell apartment there that was comfortable enough for a couple. He'd even told her about Amanda and her mate staying there for a while. Lokan and Carol stayed there too, so it couldn't be too bad.
"There's also the crypt," Kalugal said. "That's where the clan puts captured Doomers after they are put in stasis. It's also where their dead rest."
Another chill ran down Areana's spine.
That was where Navuh might end up if he didn't survive or if Kian decided that he was too dangerous to let live. Stasis was not death, but he would be as good as dead to her, and she didn't know if she would survive that. They had been truelove mates for thousands of years. A bond like that was impossible to break, even in death.
Even in stasis.
She would have to follow him there.
Annani had promised to keep Navuh alive, but she hadn't specified for how long. Hadn't promised that alive meant anything more than technically not dead.
