Night Quest

He didn’t seem to hear her. He ran his finger along the length of the most prominent vein in his arm and met her gaze.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

A thread of sickness coiled through her belly like a parasitic worm. “I should not—”

“Are you afraid you’ll hurt me? I promise that won’t happen.”

She licked her lips. “I can’t.”

Garret held her gaze. “You’re afraid of losing control, aren’t you? Whatever you think you might do, I’m prepared for it.”

“Perhaps... I am not.”

“You’ve run out of options, Artemis. Take my blood—or die.”

His words were more than merely a warning. They were certainty, and Artemis knew he was right. It was a kind of blackmail, but he must know that in her desperation she might still overpower him and take what she needed.

He trusted her.

One time, she told herself. Then she would be strong again, and she would have learned from her mistakes.

Unable to fight her instincts, she grabbed his arm just below the elbow and bit into his wrist, barely remembering to temper the force of the bite before her teeth pierced his skin. He didn’t so much as flinch, nor did he look away.

As his blood flowed over her tongue, Artemis felt something quite extraordinary. It wasn’t at all like taking blood from the Citadel’s public serfs, provided to Freebloods solely for the purpose of keeping them alive...barely. Nor was it similar to the times she had been compelled to feed from humans before and during the War, before the establishment of the Citadels.

That had been necessity. This was a far more intimate act, not merely a bargaining chip.

Intimate. That was the word, the sensation, the emotion, that overwhelmed her. Her body grew warm with the rush of vital nourishment and the headiness of lust.

Only after she was sated did she dare to look up. Garret’s aura was alive, a scarlet halo visible only to her mind. His eyes were like faceted emeralds, cool and hot all at once. His chest rose and fell quickly, and she could smell a distinctive change in his earthy, masculine scent.

Lust. It was happening again...his emotions were invading her mind, feeding her desire as hers fed his in an endless cycle.

Bending to his arm again, she sealed the wound. Her tongue lingered on his skin, tracing a line down to his palm. He made a sound deep in his throat, and she felt herself being pulled toward him. Her heart seemed ready to leap from her chest into his. She closed her eyes and pressed herself against him, her breasts exquisitely tender. He adjusted her to straddle him, and she could feel his hardness thrusting against her through his camouflage pants.

Then he turned his face aside, pushed her away and jumped to his feet. She did the same, trembling when she should have been at her strongest, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Wrong, she thought, all wrong. Garret had knocked her so far off balance that she wasn’t sure she would ever find her footing again.

“That should be enough to help you finish healing,” he said, reaching for his shirt as if nothing had happened. “But we’ll need to move soon.”

“We.” For a moment, she had almost forgotten.

This was a bargain. Now she had to fulfill her part of it.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_80409491-5dc9-544a-9515-b7935831afc1)

Artemis’s lovely face turned utterly cold.

Garret wasn’t surprised. She justifiably believed that she’d been blackmailed into helping him. She’d taken his blood only because she knew she had no other choice, and he would have done nearly anything to get her help.

But he also knew that she had been struggling ever since he’d rescued her...struggling with the same impulses and emotions he’d been feeling almost from the moment of their first meeting. Emotions most Nightsiders denied, believing them to be the bane of inferior humanity.

Yet when she’d taken his blood, he had experienced the kind of intense physical attraction he hadn’t felt since Roxana’s death. He’d been painfully aware of Artemis’s petite but generously curved body, the quickness of her breathing, the deep mystery of her dark eyes. He had held her against him, feeling the heat of her arousal matching his, imagining her soft moans as he stroked her naked skin...

He cut off the thoughts before they could carry him into dangerous waters. In the end, he’d rejected his own lust. As the leader of Erebus’s human Underground, he had always striven to be disciplined, watchful and patient. Roxana had made it almost easy.

Artemis didn’t. What was it about her that stirred his body and soul to such an inexplicable degree? Knowing that she was different from other Freeblood rogues couldn’t account for this strong, almost uncontrollable reaction. What had started out as a compulsion to save an intelligent being from an act of barbarism had quickly evolved into something else, something he didn’t want any more than she did.

If he were making the decision only for himself, he would go his own way and let her go hers. It would be far better for both of them.

But Timon came first. His well-being was a thousand times more important than the relief of any small discomfort his father might experience along the way. No price was too high.

He had to gain Artemis’s trust and keep it. Until Timon was safe.

“I’m sorry,” he said, grabbing his coat. “I should have remembered that we’ll both need to recover before we move on.” He pulled on the coat and zipped it up with slightly numb fingers, aware that he had begun to tremble from loss of blood. The ground seemed to tilt toward him. He’d forgotten what it was like to give so much blood at one time.

“Are you ill?” Artemis asked, a little of the coldness leaving her eyes.

“Nothing that an hour of rest won’t cure,” he said. “And if you move too fast after taking so much blood, you’re likely to have problems yourself.”

She studied him with a frown. “I am in no danger,” she said. “But I see that you are not steady enough to travel. You had better sit down.”

With a brief nod of acknowledgment, Garret slid to the base of the tree and leaned his head back against the trunk, grateful that they’d independently made the decision not to mention what had happened during the blood-taking.

“I don’t expect you to stand guard for both of us,” he said. “Wake me if I start to drift off.”

Artemis chose a tree a little distance away and sat beneath it, holding herself erect and alert. “You are a strange human,” she said.

“I thought you’d reached that conclusion when we first met,” he said, closing his eyes.

“I know why you saved my life and shared your blood, or at least why you claim you did. What I do not understand is why you are so willing to reveal weakness.”

Garret wondered if she was trying to make him angry. She didn’t know him well enough to realize that he’d been through far too much to let pride influence his actions.

“I’ve already put my life in your hands many times over,” he said. “If I didn’t trust you—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I have always heard that free human males believe themselves to be stronger than females in every way, and will do anything to avoid revealing any physical or mental impairment before one of the opposite sex.”

Garret opened one eye a crack. “How do you know?”

“It is common knowledge.”

“The same way it’s common knowledge among humans that all Nightsiders are vicious killers?” He laughed shortly. “Not all human males feel the need to prove that they’re invulnerable.”

Artemis reached for her own small pack and unhooked her canteen. “It would be foolish to attempt it with a female Opir.”

“I’d like to think I’m not a fool,” Garret said.