Daysider (Nightsiders) Page 10

  Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, and her shoulders sagged. “Did he...say anything before he died?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  Once again Damon was faced with the dilemma of how much to tell her. There was no good reason to assume that only her partner knew about the origin of the drugs in the patch; she could easily have been concealing that knowledge from him just as Carter had.

  But why would she, if she knew he could save her simply by sharing his blood? No, he was certain her behavior toward him would have been different if she’d known the source of the medication that kept her alive.

  Still, it now seemed much more significant that Alexia had attempted to seduce him—if it could be called seduction, seemingly subconscious as it had been—and had tasted his blood. True, she’d taken no more than a drop, if that, but something inside her had known that in that blood lay something she must have to stay alive.

  Alexia would have to be made to understand how important it was that they act on Michael’s information immediately. But Damon still had no proof that Carter had betrayed her. Or why he would. Even suggesting such a possibility would be the surest way of turning Alexia against him once and for all.

  Damon dropped to his haunches. “He told me how to keep you alive.”

  She looked up from Carter’s still face. “There was only one way he could have done that,” she said. “I would never have bought my life with his.”

  “Getting a new patch isn’t the only way,” Damon said. “He told me more about it. What makes it work.”

  “What does that matter now?”

  “Because he said the drugs in the patch are derived from the blood of my kind.”

  She froze. Her muscles locked, and even the tears on her cheeks seemed to harden like crystal.

  “Your kind?” she said. “Darketans?”

  “Yes.”

  “My God,” she whispered.

  Her shock wasn’t feigned. She was genuinely astonished, and perhaps even more than that—horrified.

  “He didn’t say where your Enclave obtained the blood,” Damon added, “but if the patches have been in use for years...”

  “Since ten years after the Treaty,” she said, looking away.

  She knew as well as Damon what that meant, though being from the Enclave, she might see some of the implications he had missed. Her face remained an expressionless mask.

  “I don’t understand how that is supposed to keep me alive,” she said.

  “Your partner suggested that taking my blood might save you.”

  She stood abruptly and headed back the way she had come, her legs jerking with every step. Damon glanced down at Carter one last time, gathered up packs and weapons, and followed her, watching carefully to ensure she didn’t stumble or fall.

  “Do you understand?” he asked, catching up to her. “You have a chance to live.”

  Alexia continued to walk without glancing in his direction. It was obvious that she was pushing herself to stay on her feet, and the farther she went the more she slowed down. Damon had to resist the compulsion to take her in his arms and carry her the rest of the way.

  Moving at an extremely slow pace with many stops to allow Alexia to rest, they reached their camp several hours later. By then it had been dark for some time, and Alexia was walking with her arms wrapped around her stomach, her skin almost yellow and her body racked with wave after wave of severe tremors.

  Ignoring the risk, Damon took her arm and forced her down onto the blanket. She resisted, but even in full health she was not as strong as he was. As soon as she was on the ground, she jerked her arm away.

  Damon remained standing, trying not to loom over her. “You can’t go on like this much longer,” he said softly. “We will have to attempt it.”

  Her jaw set. “Forget it.”

  “Why? Have you no desire to complete your mission, if only for Carter’s sake?”

  She picked up a twig and scraped jagged lines through the dirt as if she were inscribing her refusal in some ancient, arcane language.

  “The price is too high,” she said.

  The price. What price was worth more than her life? “You don’t want to live?” he asked, hearing the anger in his voice.

  She jabbed the stick into the ground with such force that it snapped. “We do not drink blood.”

  The very fact that she objected so fiercely confirmed Damon’s belief that she had no memory of tasting his blood before. But he was not about to let the matter rest at that.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “We don’t drink it,” she repeated, holding herself tightly as if she feared she might shatter into a million pieces.

  “Because you refuse to acknowledge that you are half-Opir?” he asked, moving closer. “Is that what you were taught, to despise that part of yourself?”

  “I do despise it,” she burst out, struggling to her feet. “I hate that the man who forcibly impregnated my mother was a vampire. I hate that I was born sharing anything in common with your kind.”

  Her vehemence hit Damon with the force of a blow. He was not surprised by it; he had always accepted that the hatred her partner had so clearly expressed must be the prevailing opinion among their kind, even if Carter’s willingness to let it interfere with his work put him on the extreme end of the emotional range.

  But that Alexia hated herself so much...that was something he couldn’t accept so easily. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand. There had been many times in his life, before he had accepted his duty, that he had hated what he was. Hated that he could never fully be part of Opir society, that the true-bloods would always consider him, and all his kind, almost as far below them as humans.

  When he had told Alexia he was an outsider, it had been to gain her trust. But what he’d said was the truth.

  “You have already taken something from one of my kind,” he said. “And shared something much more personal.”

  “I told you that didn’t mean anything,” she said. “It was the illness.”

  “And now you have a chance to rid yourself of that illness. If you can set aside your prejudice.”

  “Prejudice?” She faced him eye to eye, passionate with defiance. “Your breed came into our world and ignited a war so you could make every human a slave to your needs. We were...are...cattle to you, and you expect us to regard you as anything but tyrants and murderers?”

  “You may rest assured that I do not regard you as livestock, or an inferior.”

  All the fire in Alexia’s eyes winked out as if his simple statement had smothered every spark of hatred in her heart. “It doesn’t matter,” she said wearily. “I can’t do it. I won’t.”

  She sank down again and lay on her side, turning her back to him. A furious desperation began to eat away at Damon’s control. He had sworn he wouldn’t let her die. Nothing had changed. If she wouldn’t cooperate, he would force her to accept his help. Even if he had to tie her down, puncture his own flesh and drip his blood into her mouth.

  “Is this it?” he demanded. “Is this all Carter’s death means to you, that you lie down and surrender?”

  “Better than drinking blood and becoming like you.”

  “Better to stay alive and fight for what you believe in.”

  She rolled over to face him. “Why do you give a damn, Damon? We’re still on opposite sides. Why have you fought so hard to keep me alive?”

  “Because I...” He stopped, knowing full well what he was about to admit aloud was the culmination of every forbidden emotion he had fought against since he had met her. Once he had spoken the words, there would be no going back. Not until his mission was complete and they were parted forever.

  “I care about you,” he said, forcing the words through gritted teeth.

  As much as Carter’s death and the revelation about the patch had shocked Alexia, he had expected disgust, rejection, perhaps even derision. But she only gazed at him as if he had told her that the sun set in the west.

  �
��I wouldn’t believe you,” she said quietly, “if you hadn’t—” She broke off, biting hard enough on her lower lip to draw blood.

  “Hadn’t what?” Damon asked, trying to ignore his sudden and disconcerting interest in the crimson bead at the corner of her mouth.

  “Behaved so...irrationally.”

  He winced. “It was not my intention to...to allow my reason to be compromised.”

  “Is that what you call caring about another person?” she asked with a sad, weary smile.

  That she could smile at all was what humans might call a miracle. “I am surprised you think I am capable of it at all,” he said.

  She pulled herself into a sitting position. “I said I did, didn’t I?” She took in a deep breath. “You said you wouldn’t let me die. You practically ordered me to stay alive, remember? Not even Carter did that.”

  “You never thought I had a motive other than your personal welfare?” Damon asked.

  “Of course I did. You said that was part of your mission, didn’t you? I would have been crazy to think otherwise. But now...” She rubbed her hand across her face. “Part of me believed you really did kill Michael. I don’t think that anymore.”

  Damon’s heart began to pound under his ribs like heavy surf battering the shore. “And now that you do not,” he said, “how do you regard me?”

  Her frank gaze wavered and then fixed on his again as if she knew she couldn’t escape the truth, no matter how unpalatable it was to her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know how to define what I feel. But I have found some reason to admire you, to...recognize your good qualities.”

  “My ‘human’ qualities?”

  Her lips twitched. “If you like.”

  “Yet you still insist what happened between us was meaningless?”

  “I told you—” She sighed. “Even if I’d known what I was doing, it was only sex.”

  Damon’s throat felt as if he had swallowed his own knife. “You have had sex before,” he said.

  She pulled the edge of the blanket up over her legs without any apparent realization that she was doing it. “I’m no virgin, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding?” She cast him a glance that was an uneasy combination of amusement and profound discomfort. “Making love is a normal part of human existence.”

  Her answer didn’t release the knot in Damon’s stomach. “Making love,” he said. “A strange phrase to suggest a sexual relationship. Is it such a casual thing among humans?”

  She shrugged. “It can be.”

  “But what you call love is not.”

  Her expression changed, shadowed with thoughts she clearly found disturbing. “Why don’t you tell me what it’s like for Daysiders? Do you force yourself on humans the way your masters do?”

  Memories of the single human he had taken in his youth silenced his protest. He hadn’t forced himself on her. She had come to him knowing her duty, unafraid.

  But not wanting. Not free. Just as he had never been truly free with, even though he had told himself their relationship was as much by his choice as hers.

  “I can speak only for myself,” he said. “I would never take a woman unwilling, no matter what her kind.” He caught Alexia’s gaze, turning the tables again. “Did you have intercourse with Carter?”

  “What?” She blinked at him, her expression transforming from surprise to outrage. “Carter was my partner. I cared about him, but I didn’t sleep with him. Clear enough?”

  Not clear at all, Damon thought. There were still too many things about human and dhampir emotions he didn’t fully understand. But knowing Carter had never been with her that way...

  Damon closed his eyes. The very thought of what might have happened if Carter hadn’t interrupted him and Alexia sent a fierce shock of desire through his body. He imagined Alexia’s breasts bared to him, his mouth on her nipple, his skin naked against hers. His cock stiffened, throbbing with a deep ache that could end only one way.

  But if he ever gave in to that lust, he would drive Alexia away for all time. If he didn’t lose her to her own stubbornness.

  “What is clear,” he said, “is that you promised me you would stay alive.”

  She turned her back on him again. “I think we’ve covered that topic.”

  “Evidently not thoroughly enough. You gave me your word. Are you breaking it?”

  She sat up and met his gaze. “Do you remember my exact words, Damon?” she asked intently.

  It was a strange question, but when Damon tried to recall the conversation he couldn’t remember when or how she’d made her promise.

  “Are you denying you said it?” he pressed.

  Alexia heaved herself to her feet and reached down for her pack. “I have to go bury Michael. I’m not going to let scavengers tear him apart.”

  Damon blocked her path. “Carter is beyond caring what becomes of his body,” he said.

  “He deserves to be laid to rest.”

  “That is foolishness.”

  “I’ll give him a proper burial.” She pushed him aside with her healed shoulder and strode away. Damon went after her, seized her arm and swung her around to face him. He bared his teeth.

  “Don’t make me tie you up,” he said. “I will if you try to leave.”

  “Then that’s what you’ll have to do.”

  Chapter 8

  Without hesitation Damon herded her back to the blanket, compelled her to kneel and pulled his pack close with his free hand. He unfastened one of the outer pockets and withdrew a carefully bundled length of cord. In spite of its thinness, it was easily strong enough to bear a large Darketan’s weight or keep a dhampir firmly bound.

  Alexia struggled, but her excursion to look for him and Carter had taken a severe toll on her body. Damon pinned her down, caught both her wrists in his free hand and lashed the cord around them. He let her go just long enough to secure the cord and then helped her sit up.

  There was nothing but cold contempt in her eyes.

  “You won’t like what happens when I get free,” she snapped.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  Alexia lapsed into silence, and after a while her chin began to sink to her chest as she gave way to her body’s demands. Damon wasn’t deceived. She might be too weak to resist him now, but he knew she wouldn’t give in, even with her last breath.

  So he waited her out, keeping watch over her and looking for any sign that she might be worsening. He removed the remnants of his shirt and undershirt, leaving his torn jacket spread over a bush to air out.

  The night was cool and silent save for the usual animal sounds, and Alexia fell asleep sitting up within fifteen minutes. Gently Damon laid her down and pulled half the blanket over her. She didn’t awaken at his touch.

  He knew he shouldn’t postpone the inevitable, not even for another hour. Yet when it came down to the decision of forcing her to drink his blood, he couldn’t do it. She had to be willing.

  As “willing” as she had been before? Or fully conscious of her choice?

  He had no answer, and so as the long night dragged on, Damon paced the hilltop until he had memorized every twig, every rock, and every leaf on every bush. Still Alexia slept. A few hours before dawn he lay down beside Alexia, his back to her chest, and forced himself to relax. Even if he fell into the twilight sleep Darketans and Opiri used to regenerate, he would still be fully capable of sensing danger.

  But sleep wouldn’t come. He rolled over and studied Alexia’s quiet face. Her features were soft again, revealing that strange innocence that her years as an agent had erased from her conscious mind. Her lips were slightly parted, and her lashes brushed her cheeks like fine strands of silk.

  Slowly he reached for her, brushing his fingertips across her chin. She sighed and curled toward him.

  Her body did what her mind could not. It trusted him.

  Damon let his fingers trail across her lips, move up to
trace her brows and brush back the hair that had fallen across her forehead. He couldn’t bear it, this strange tenderness, this desire that was so much more than physical. How could he justify the way he had taken her dignity by trussing her like a steer bound for the serfs’ table?

  Rising silently, Damon walked around her and knelt to free her hands. He tossed the cord aside, settled her arms in a more natural position and rested his hand on her back. It was like touching a smoldering fire. A shiver worked its way through her body, and Damon knew she was sinking into fever again.

  She would be vulnerable now, as vulnerable as she could ever be. But Damon knew he couldn’t steal her will and dignity again.

  Even if I must let her die? he thought.

  No. He’d let her keep her pride until her body and mind failed, until there was no hope left. And then...

  He stretched out beside her again, cradling her against his chest. Her breath hitched and released, but she was no longer shivering. Damon rested his face against her hair, breathing in the fragrant scent that days of hardship hadn’t erased. He pressed his lips to her neck, feeling her thready pulse and the sluggishness of her blood. He nuzzled her shoulder, her ear, her jaw, drawn into a memory of Eirene lying in his arms on his narrow cot in the Darketan dormitory.

  The image froze and Damon stopped, arrested by the recognition of a change in himself he had never expected. Until this moment, his thoughts of Eirene had been acutely painful, laced with hatred, grief and guilt he thought he would carry until the end of his days.

  But suddenly those feelings had receded into shadow, driven away by the remarkable woman he held now. He could remember Eirene’s smile, her courage, the warmth and gentleness even a Darketan’s rigorous training hadn’t diminished. He could remember and not despise himself.

  It was almost as if he were free—not of the memories of Eirene’s death, but of the blackness it had left festering inside him.

  The blackness that would come roaring back to life when Alexia died.

  But not yet.

  “You would have liked Eirene,” he murmured against Alexia’s ear. “She was not afraid of what all Darketans fear most.” He brushed his knuckles across Alexia’s cheek. “She cared for me, and I lost her. But now...”