Blood Entangled by Amber Belldene Page B

them. Low filtered lights prevented damage to the ancient heirlooms.
    “What do you mean?” Ethan plastered a show of puzzlement on his face. Very few people had private facilities like this, and especially not beneath an unassuming house in the Boston suburbs.
    “Give me a break, Edwin.” Her accent added a certain charm to the colloquialism.
    His real name formed on his lips, but he swallowed it. That kind of slip could ruin the best-laid plans.
    Still, the more of the truth he told her, the more useful she would be. He rolled up his cuffs, settling in for a night of research. “My family is part of a Welsh tribe that has preserved its traditions and artifacts for centuries. I believe we originated somewhere in Central Asia and migrated across Europe.”
    “Your name isn’t Welsh.”
    “I’m descended from the Welsh community, and one in Eastern Europe.”
    She flitted around the basement, looking inside each display case. Her focus was so intense that each time she bent over a glass cabinet, he longed to see inside it too. But watching her petite frame bend over the cases was also interesting. The climate control fan hummed in the otherwise silent room. She didn’t speak for ten minutes, and he was startled when her voice sounded over the droning air conditioner.
    “Let me see this.” She pointed at a bronze brooch.
    He held a ring of small keys, each one opening a different case. It had been his father’s idea of security. Ethan had pointed out that if all the keys were on the same ring, it wasn’t secure, just inconvenient. Yes, well—there was a reason his father was dead and he wasn’t. He would call the locksmith in the morning.
    He opened the rear panel of the case. Tissue in hand, she reached inside to grasp the object. She held the brooch on her open palm and they bent their heads together to peer at it. For the life of him, he could not figure out why she had selected it from all the other objects. It was round and bronze, with a bull’s-eye pattern surrounded by a silver circlet, braided in a style similar to her ring.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “A brooch.”
    He ignored her sarcasm. “I’ve always believed this piece to be unremarkable.”
    “Logical, but mistaken. You think your tribe migrated to the British Isles from Central Asia. When do you think this migration occurred?”
    “Early Iron age. The third or fourth century before Christ.”
    “There are many improbable things about that hypothesis, but the codex makes me curious and this brooch supports your theory. It’s a nazar .”
    He rifled through his mind until he located the definition. “A charm for warding off the evil eye? Don’t those have blue irises?”
    “Yes, except in your codex, there are people with golden eyes. This is a golden-eyed nazar . I’d place its origin farther west, in Turkey.”
    “Are you certain?”
    “No.” She didn’t elaborate, but continued to examine the artifact. Then she set it on top of the case and resumed her walk around the room. Minutes passed before she spoke again. “I am going to tell you something about the codex, in exchange for your honest answer to the following question. Do we have a deal?”
    So this was how it would be between them— quid pro quo, all the way. Of course, there were other means to get information from her. He was skilled in them, and ever since Pedro had escaped, he had itched for another chance to use the sharp objects in his little black bag. But he could not extract information she did not yet have, which meant he would have to wait for her to study his Hunter relics and feed her the history she wanted.
    “Obviously, I can’t agree until I know the question.”
    “Fair enough.” She trailed her hand along the cases, sauntering toward him. Much too close for his comfort, she stopped and tilted her face up. “What color are your eyes?”
    He relaxed his cheeks and mouth to block an expression of surprise. “What a strange question. You can see for