Night Quest Read online

  “You got guts to travel out here by yourself,” he said, “and you look like a good fighter. You married?”

  The grief was almost as fresh now as it had been four years ago. “No,” he said.

  “Then you might be welcome to join us if you decide not to go back south again.”

  “After I find my son, I may take you up on your offer.”

  “My name’s Claude Delacroix. Find the old town of Melford and wait by the bridge over the creek. Someone’ll find you and bring you to the compound.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Garret pulled free, firmly but politely. “If you can keep your men away, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Will do.” Delacroix gestured to his crew, cast Garret another assessing look and followed them.

  Well aware that the militiamen were watching every move he made, Garret crouched by the net. The Opir woman’s pale skin was striped everywhere with narrow lacerations, her jacket and pants were little more than scraps of fabric held together by a few threads, and the hand tucked half under her chest was blistered and red. Her hair, a rich shade of ivory, was just long enough to cover her face.

  No matter what she was or what she might have done, Garret thought, she didn’t deserve this.

  “Listen to me,” he said, leaning as close to the net as he dared. “I can help you get out of here, but you’ll have to do exactly as I say.”

  Slowly she lifted her head. Her eyes were dark amethyst, unexpectedly and extraordinarily beautiful. Her body was slender, her face delicate and fine-boned, but there was nothing weak in either. The defiance in her eyes told him that anyone who made the mistake of thinking her fragile would quickly regret their assumption.

  “I heard what was said,” she said. “You are lying.”

  The misery in her voice cut straight through Garret like the razor wires that cut her body. “Where I come from,” he said, “we don’t leave people to be tortured to death.”

  “People?” she said with a brief, hoarse laugh. “Is that what you think I am, human? A person?”

  “They obviously don’t think so,” he said, tilting his head toward the militiamen.

  “You wish to interrogate me, but I have nothing to tell you.”

  “Do you live in this area?”

  Her full lips remained stubbornly closed.

  “You don’t know anything about a pack of rogues with a human child?” Garret asked.

  “No.”

  “I know his kidnappers came this way, but I lost their trail. You must have sensed them.”

  “I did not.”

  “Where is the rest of your pack?”

  “I have no pack.” She coughed, turning her face away. “If you have any of your supposed human mercy in you, let me have the quick death the other humans will never give me.”

  “Is that what you want?” he asked. “To die?”

  “I cannot help you. Why would you offer me any other alternative?”

  He glanced over the top of the net. The militiamen were muttering among themselves. Garret’s five minutes were almost up.

  “You have two choices,” he said. “Trust me, or force me to hand you over to them. And I don’t want your death on my conscience.”

  She tried to brush her hair out of her face, but the movement cracked the burned skin of her hand, and her expressive eyes blurred with pain. “What do you want me to do?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “If it matters... Artemis.”

  He showed her the shock stick. “Artemis, you’ll have to pretend I’m using this on you. Be convincing. I’ll flip the net back. You come out, grab me and drag me into the woods.”

  “You believe I will not kill you?” she asked with obvious astonishment.

  “Will you?”

  “They will shoot both of us.”

  “It’s possible. But I think I’ve persuaded them to believe that I’m one of them.”

  “Yes. You are human.”

  Garret held her gaze. “I hope you’ll choose to live.”

  With another quick glance at the militiamen, Garret raised his voice in a harsh question and pretended to jab the stick into the net. The Opir woman began to convulse very convincingly, and as she did Garret grabbed two of the weights with his gloved hands and flung the net back over itself, leaving a narrow gap at the bottom.

  Artemis was injured and in great discomfort, but she moved very fast, scrambling out from under the net, grabbing him by the shoulders and half dragging him toward the woods. He dropped the shock stick. Sunlight struck her, and she swallowed a cry. The weakness of her grip told Garret that she wouldn’t be able to keep up the pretense for long, so he made a show of helplessness, struggling as if she had complete control of him.

  A bullet whizzed past his ear when they were still a few yards from the woods’ edge. Garret shouted and raised one hand in a plea as the woman continued to tug at him, her fingers beginning to slip from his coat.

  “A little farther,” Garret said. “Once we’re inside the woods, run.”

  Artemis stumbled, and Garret twisted to push her toward the trees. The militiamen were jogging after them now, deadly silent and ready to shoot. Garret and the Freeblood reached the shade, and she staggered, her breath sawing in her throat.

  “Go!” Garret said.

  “They’ll kill you,” she said hoarsely, refusing to move.

  “For being an idiot and allowing you to escape? I don’t think so.”

  She didn’t have time to answer, because the men were almost on top of them. Artemis grabbed him around the neck and dragged him deeper into the shadows. He could have escaped easily, but he played along, gasping for air and digging his heels into the dirt.

  “Come no closer!” she shouted. “I will kill him!”

  Chapter 2

  The militiamen slowed to a walk. Delacroix signaled a halt. He met Garret’s gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t let her escape.” He lifted his rifle and aimed at the center of the woman’s forehead.

  “She knows where my son is!” Garret rasped. “Let her go, please!”

  Delacroix hesitated. “Your son is no more important than the people this bloodsucker will kill.”

  “I will release him if you give me five more minutes before you follow me,” Artemis said.

  Bending his head toward the man next to him, Delacroix spoke in a low voice, listened to his comrades and nodded.

  “Five minutes,” he said, checking his watch.

  Without warning, Artemis released Garret, pushing him toward the men, and sprang into a run. Almost immediately the militiamen started after her.

  “Wait,” Garret said. “I thought you said—”

  Delacroix signaled a halt. “You think we’d keep a promise to one of them?” he asked. “Don’t you want the info you say she has?”

  “Yes, of course,” Garret said, rubbing his throat as he got to his feet. “But if you go into those woods after her, she’ll have the advantage.”

  Two of the men aimed their rifles at him. “Who are you?” Delacroix asked again.

  “A former serf from the Citadel of Erebus,” Garret said. “Do you know what that’s like? Any of you?”

  The men exchanged glances. One lowered his gaze. Another spat.

  “This is my fault,” Garret said. “Give me one of your weapons and I’ll get her myself.”

  “She’ll have even more of an advantage over one hunter,” Delacroix said. “Why aren’t you carrying a gun?”

  The VS seemed to burn a hole through Garret’s pack and into his coat. “I had one,” he began, “but—”

  “Take off your pack,” Delacroix said.

  “Why?”

  “You’re hiding somethi
ng, and I want to know what it is.”

  Garret lunged at Delacroix, grabbed the man’s rifle in both hands, yanked it away and slammed the butt into the leader’s face. Without slowing, he struck the next man in the neck and then reversed the rifle.

  Two of the others began to shoot, but Garret had already moved out of their path. He shot one of the men in the hand, forcing him to drop his rifle. The youngest one yelled and charged at Garret wildly. His heedless rage gave Garret the chance to kick the weapon out of the boy’s grip before he could pull the trigger.

  But another rifleman and the one he’d struck in the neck were almost on top of him. Someone flashed by him, a small figure who took the two men down so quickly that Garret couldn’t see how she’d done it. He didn’t take time to think it over. Shrugging out of his pack, he uncoiled the rope hanging from the metal frame and cut it into five lengths. By the time he turned back, all the militiamen were on the ground—alive, but weaponless and either unconscious or disabled.

  He met Artemis’s gaze briefly and knelt beside Delacroix, who was moaning as he began to wake up. Garret rolled him over and tied his hands securely. The Opir woman helped him with the other men, her face and body shielded by an oversize hooded daycoat that was thick enough to protect her from the worst of the sun. She wore equally heavy gloves. Garret could only assume that she had kept the day clothes close by in case she was caught out of the woods after dawn.

  He checked on each of the men when he was finished. Two of them were already struggling and cursing, while Delacroix and his second-in-command were bleary-eyed and disoriented. The youngest glared at Garret with undisguised hatred.

  “Listen to me,” Garret said, crouching in front of him. “I’m going to set you free. You go back to your colony and tell them to come fetch their people.”

  The boy pulled hard against the ropes around his wrists. “You gonna leave them out here for the rogues to eat?” he demanded.

  Garret glanced at Artemis. “Are there any other Opiri in the area?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You believe her?” the boy said, his face twisted in amazement.

  “No Opiri are going to attack you in sunlight. Your people should be able to return with plenty of time to spare before dark.”

  “Traitor!” the boy spat, tears running down his cheeks. “We’ll hunt you down.”

  Garret moved behind the boy and cut through the ropes. “Take your pack,” he said, “and go.”

  For a moment he thought the boy would stay and try to fight, but even he had enough sense to realize he didn’t have a chance. He grabbed the pack and ran off, his pace much too fast to maintain for more than a few minutes.

  “You will pay for this,” Delacroix said, his words a little slurred. “We kill sucker-lovers around here.”

  Garret ignored him. He gathered up the weapons and backed away until he was in the woods again. Artemis went with him. He noticed that she was carrying a bow in one hand and a quiver full of arrows in the other.

  “Thank you,” Garret said roughly, trying to adjust the rifles’ straps so that he could carry them all at once to a place where the militiamen wouldn’t find them. “You can go.”

  “You saved my life at the risk of your own,” Artemis said, her eyes reflecting crimson under the hood of her coat.

  “I told you—”

  “That you would not leave someone to be tortured,” she said. “But I still do not understand why you would turn against your own kind to help one of mine.”

  Anger and grief clogged Garret’s throat and tore at his heart. “I knew an Opir who did the same for us.”

  Her brows drew down and her lips parted as if she were about to ask how such a thing could be possible.

  And then she collapsed.

  * * *

  Artemis woke to pain. Tiny filaments of agony circled her limbs and waist, her chest and neck. And her hands...

  “Easy,” the human said as she tried to sit up. He eased her back down to the bed of fallen leaves on which she’d been lying.

  Instinctively she resisted, irrational panic flooding her body. But he refused to let her up, and she realized that he was strong enough to impose his will.

  Human or not, he was dangerous. She had seen him fight. He moved almost as fast as an Opir.

  “You’re already healing,” he said, his brows knitting in a frown, “but if you push yourself, you’ll slow it down. We don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to.”

  She disregarded the “we” and compelled herself to relax. “Where are the men?” she asked, casting about for their rank scents.

  “It’s only been a few hours.” He glanced over his shoulder, and for the first time Artemis saw that they were far into the forest under a thick canopy of cottonwoods, protected on two sides by boulders that stood beside a small creek. She realized that she was wearing unfamiliar clothes that were much too large for her, carrying the oddly pleasant smell of the human who had saved her. Her daycoat and gloves lay neatly folded within reach; her knives, bow and quiver were farther away. It would take some effort to get them.

  She might have just enough strength to surprise the human, grab her things and run.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” the man said, his eyes tracking her gaze.

  “I am not afraid of you...human.”

  “My name is Garret Fox,” he said, seemingly indifferent to her mockery.

  “There is no need for you to stay,” she said. “It would be best if you did not.”

  “Why? Are you planning on attacking me when my back is turned?”

  The question seemed hostile, but his face was impassive. Too impassive to be credible. “If you believed that,” she said, “you would never have brought me here.”

  “That’s right,” he said, dropping back into a crouch. “Saving my life just to kill me wouldn’t make much sense.”

  She began to formulate an answer, but all at once she found herself lost in the extraordinary green of his eyes, like the moss clinging to the sides of the boulders. His dark red hair brushed the back of his collar, as if he hadn’t cut it in some time, and there was a shadow of darker hair on his jaw and upper lip. His features were strong but not coarse, his mouth mobile but decisive.

  By human standards he was very attractive. And Opiri appreciated human beauty well enough to seek out serfs that bore the same qualities this man exemplified, such as his lean, fit body, broad shoulders and easy grace.

  Artemis had never owned such a serf. She had never owned a serf at all, though she had been strong enough to stake out her own Household in Oceanus, if that had been her intent.

  Now, in a haze of pain and caught in the snare of this human’s gaze, she wondered what it would have been like to own a man like this. What it might have been like if he were her Favorite, and they—

  The man jerked away, and she realized that she had been touching his hand with her raw fingertips. His reaction had been so violent that she expected to see distaste on his face, but there was only confusion, as if he had been taken unaware by more than just the touch itself.

  Artemis, too, was bewildered. Her fingertips tingled, and a series of small shocks ran through her arms and deep into the core of her body. Physical sensations she hadn’t experienced in many, many years.

  And through that touch she felt something else. Something that she thought she’d been rid of for a very long time. An emotional aura flared briefly around Garret Fox, as red as his hair, fed by all the anger and passion his expression concealed.

  The aura vanished quickly, but her shock lingered. The ability she had worked so hard to erase—the ability to sense and feel the emotions of others—had returned with a vengeance, and a human had reawakened it.

  But how could that be possible, when her brief dealings with her ow
n kind since her exile had had no effect at all?

  Fight it, she told herself. If it takes hold again...

  “Lie still,” Garret said, as if nothing had happened. “And keep that hand covered.”

  She lifted her chin, hoping that he hadn’t noticed her bewilderment. “I am not accustomed to taking orders from your kind.”

  “Call it a suggestion, then.” He cocked his head. “Why did you come back for me?”

  “Do I not owe you my life?”

  “Most of your kind wouldn’t feel bound by a debt to a human.”

  “You said another Opir had helped you.”

  Artemis could hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat break and then resume at a slightly faster pace. “She was a remarkable person,” he said.

  She. “What was her name?” Artemis said, trying and failing to control her curiosity.

  “Roxana.” He shifted his weight and looked away. “Which Citadel did you come from?”

  “Why does it matter?” she asked. “Do you plan to interrogate me now, where you will not be interrupted by my untimely death?”

  “You are an exile, aren’t you?”

  She wondered why he had chosen that word when he might as easily have called her a “rogue bloodsucker.” It was how he had spoken of her to the other humans. And how most humans thought of Freebloods, or Opiri in general.

  Opiri. Nightsiders. Vampires.

  “What else would I be?” she asked.

  Her supposedly rhetorical question provoked a raised eyebrow and a keen look. She knew what was going through his mind: the same thing that was going through hers, but in reverse.

  Both sides in the ongoing conflict between humans and Opiri had scouts and spies in the vast, supposedly uninhabited areas between human and Opir settlements, usually known as “Zones.” Most of the human colonies’ scouts and agents were mixed-breed Opiri, called dhampires. But a few pure-blood humans were skilled enough to survive in the Zones, even against Nightsider opponents.

  Garret could easily be one such human. But he was too far from the nearest human Enclave to be one of their scouts, and she would bet her life—again—that he didn’t work for any of the militias.