Night Quest

As sunset approached, she sat down on a boulder under a stand of pines at the edge of a wide meadow and simply waited. The light began to fade. Nocturnal creatures would soon be venturing from their dens and hiding places, giving her another chance. Whatever came, she would have no choice but to take it.

Something large moved through the undergrowth on the other side of the meadow, an animal powerful enough to disregard any need for stealth.

A bear and her half-grown cubs emerged from the trees. The sow rose up on her hind legs, nostrils flaring, while the cubs tumbled about and cuffed each other in play.

Artemis caught her breath. She had seen plenty of bears before, but something in the scene touched her in a way she hadn’t expected.

She rose slowly, careful not to attract the bears’ attention, and prepared to set off again, feeling as if she had become detached from her body. Pebbles rolled on the ground behind her. She spun around, lost her balance, and then righted herself as she belatedly grabbed at the waterproof case of her bow.

Garret was standing a few feet from the boulder. He had thrown back the hood of his coat, and his wet auburn hair had darkened to a deep brown. His strong face seemed sculpted out of the rain itself, but he seemed no more disturbed by the weather than the bears were.

What disturbed Artemis was that he had approached almost as silently as an Opir. Once again she was surprised at his skill. Surprised—and furious that she had been caught off guard.

The only thing she had to be grateful for was that she perceived him only through her physical senses, not her mental ones. There was no aura to distract her.

Is that truly all you have to be thankful for? an inner voice demanded.

“What are you doing here?” she asked aloud. “Were you following me?”

“Did you finish your hunt?” he asked.

“Leave,” she said, taking an aggressive step toward him. “Leave this place, before I must force you to go.”

He looked her up and down with those keen eyes. “Why are you so afraid?” he asked softly as the rain continued to pelt down on his head and shoulders. “Is the prospect of helping me find a lost child so repugnant to you?”

A human child, she wanted to cry out. Why should I care?

But how could she lie to him, and to herself?

“You would ask me to hunt my own people,” she said.

“They’re barely ‘your people’ at all.”

“But they are. And I believe they have a chance at a better future than what they face in the Citadels or as exiles.”

He arched a brow. “You didn’t mention this before.”

“Why should you listen?”

“What does this ‘better future’ involve, Artemis? Teaching the rogues to follow your example and refuse to take human blood? Convincing them that humans aren’t animals, aren’t just another form of prey? How would they consider that an improvement on their lives now?”

She shook her head sharply. “There is so much you cannot possibly understand.”

“I understand that you follow an ethical code of conduct that stretches to include humans, and that you live alone because you won’t share your life with barbaric killers.”

“I will not debate this with you,” she said, knowing that she’d made a mistake in bringing her philosophy into the argument. “If our positions were reversed,” she said, “would you lead me to humans I might choose to kill?”

“When did I say that I planned to kill anyone?”

“You have made your feelings about Freebloods very clear,” she said, “and you will not hesitate to use any means to save your son.”

“You’re right,” he said, matching the challenge in her voice. “But I’m not seeking revenge. If I can get Timon safely back without resorting to violence—” He broke off and took a deep breath, his gaze shifting to a point somewhere behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder. The bear had obviously seen them and had reared up again. Her formidable teeth flashed in her brown muzzle.

“Is that what you were hunting?” Garret asked.

Artemis licked the moisture from her lips. “I had no plans to attack them,” she said, grasping eagerly at the change of subject.

“But you haven’t found anything else.”

“That is not your concern.”

Garret set his pack down against the boulder. “I think you need my help,” he said.

Growing sick with hunger and the scent of the blood pumping beneath his skin, Artemis stopped herself from falling against the boulder by a sheer act of will. “You cannot help me,” she said.

“Do you object to taking human blood, even if it’s freely given?”

“Freely given—at a price,” she whispered.

“You live in the wilds. I’m well trained, but you’re faster and have keener senses than I do. Even if you won’t come with me, you can point me in the right direction. That’s all I ask.”

His voice began to fade in and out, the sound replaced by a thrumming behind her ears. She tried to convince herself to hold to her convictions, her vow never to take human blood again.

But philosophy would always fail when survival was at stake.

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand.

No longer able to resist, she stumbled toward him. He picked up his pack and kept just ahead of her, leading her under the shelter of a stand of close-growing alders. Without quite knowing how she got there, she found herself on the damp ground beside him.

Garret removed his coat and then his shirt, neatly folding both garments and laying them across his pack. Her head began to pound, and she found herself staring at the muscles of his shoulders, arms and chest—an ideal image of human masculinity. There was nothing vulgar in the way he displayed himself, but she felt need pulsing not only in her belly but also between her thighs.

As she struggled with growing delirium, he removed a rubber cord from his pack, tied it around his arm above his biceps and flexed his hand into a fist, raising the veins in his wrist. His forearm was corded with muscle, the kind achieved only through hard manual labor.

But then she looked up at his face and noticed the pulse beating in his neck. Her mouth watered. She knew that he was no serf to be taken by the throat, though the desire to bare her own body, press it against his and sink her teeth into his neck was nearly more than she could endure. She looked at his mouth, the lips slightly parted, and wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

She hadn’t kissed anyone in over a century.

“Are you certain...this is what you wish?” she asked, her voice raw with thirst.

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

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.

“Would you have begged for my help, if I had been unwilling to give it?”

“Would that have made you feel better?”

“It would only have proven how much you wish to find your son.”

“Then you have no more interest in having power over me than I do in having it over you. Which makes you exactly what I judged you to be.”

“I still do not accept your ‘judgment.’”

Garret rolled his head to observe the bears, who had apparently determined that the human and Nightsider were no threat and resumed their search for food. “Why didn’t you go after them when you needed blood?” he asked. “It wasn’t fear that stopped you, was it?”

“I was not afraid,” she said, indignation in her voice.

“But something about them made you hesitate.” He straightened, wishing he could sleep but determined to keep Artemis engaged. “They are a family.”

She shrugged, though he could see that he had struck true. “Many creatures belong to what you call ‘families,’” she said. “I cannot spare all of them.”

“Do you know how long the female black bear protects her cubs?”

“I am not ignorant about the behavior of the creatures that live in the wild.”

“One and a half years,” Garret said. “These cubs are less than a year old. They’ll go into torpor with her pretty soon, and then they’ll be with her through the spring. No one can fault a bear’s skill at parenting.” He met Artemis’s gaze. “When were you converted?”

“What has that to do with—”

“Did you have children?”

Her body stiffened. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember, or have you chosen to forget?”

“Even humans leave the past behind,” she said.

“We try,” he said, thinking of Roxana. His throat felt thick and full. “Do you remember what love is?”

“I...”

Garret unfastened his coat’s padded chest pocket, withdrawing the battered photograph in its transparent envelope.

“This is Timon,” he said. He rose and reached out to hand her the picture, and she accepted it with obvious reluctance. It had been taken before Roxana’s death; Timon was smiling, a ball in his hands, and his best friend and cousin, Alessa, at his side. With his red hair and violet-gray eyes, Timon looked human.

There was softness in Artemis’s face as she gazed at the picture, a softness that Garret had glimpsed only once or twice when she was at her most unguarded. Now she touched the picture with the tip of her finger, her lips curving in something like a smile.

“This picture was taken in a time of peace,” she said. “Who is the other child?”

“Her name is Alessa. She’s the daughter of my sister Alexia and her husband, Damon.” He tucked the photo back into his pocket. “Alexia is half Opir. A dhampir.”

Artemis stared at him. “Your father was a—”

“We had different fathers. I assure you, I’m fully human.”

“But your sister—”

“Was born in the Enclave of San Francisco, after our mother found refuge there. She married a human in the Enclave, and I was the result.”

Wrapping her arms around her chest, Artemis looked away. “I know...” she began. “I know it is an ugly thing, what our males did to your females during the War.”

“It wasn’t my intention to bring up the time before the Armistice,” Garret said, regretting his slip.

“But surely Alexia was an agent for the Enclave, like all those of mixed blood.”

“She left that life long ago. All I want for Timon is the freedom to live as he chooses, when he’s old enough to make that decision. I’d hoped this would help you to understand.”

“I always understood,” she said in a near whisper.

“Then help me track the rogues who stole my son, and then return to your life. I won’t trouble you again.”

Her mouth tightened. “You will not expect me to fight for him?”

“I won’t ask what you can’t give.”

They both fell into an uncomfortable silence, and Garret knew that it didn’t matter whether or not they talked about what had happened between them. It was there, hanging in the air, haunting them, mocking them. An odd sensation seemed to tickle the surface of his brain, and all at once he was reliving the endless moments of lust and desire, hopelessly entangled with Artemis’s need for blood and the memories of saving each other’s lives.

“Artemis,” he said, desperately resisting the urge to touch her, “I swear on Timon’s life that what happened today won’t be repeated.”

It was clear that she understood him. She felt for the tree trunk at her back, fingers digging into the rough bark. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts.

“No,” she said. “It will not.”

They both looked away at the same time, and Garret released his breath. She said that now, and she must truly believe it.

But the connection between them couldn’t simply be explained by the sharing of blood. He had wanted her in a way he hadn’t wanted any woman since Roxana, and she’d wanted him. The blood was only the catalyst.

His mind refused to speculate further.

“I think we should go,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “If we walk slowly for a while, I’ll be back to normal in a few hours.”

“Surely you are not ready,” she said. “It is nearly dark.”

“As long as I stay close enough behind you, we can travel at night. It’ll be harder for you by day, and we need to keep moving as long as we can.” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “You can hunt along the way, and I’ll do whatever I can to make things easier for you by keeping my distance.”

Easier for both of us, he thought. But Artemis had already turned her back on him and was self-consciously examining her arrows, leaving him to wonder if they could both hold to their promises.

* * *

They started north in silence, setting out along a woodland trail commonly used by both men and Opiri passing through the region once known as the Willamette Valley. Artemis took the lead, casting her senses wide for any trace of Freebloods. The rain had obliterated most animal tracks in the area, and she knew it would perform the same service for any two-legged creatures.

However, she didn’t have to rely only on sight. The scents of the wet forest were almost overwhelming, and she could track the movements of every animal—reptile, bird and mammal—that passed anywhere near them. Ironically, now that she no longer needed to hunt, she could hear tiny feet pattering over the pungent earth, and through the weeds and fallen pine needles, the rustle of wings in the undergrowth and deep among the branches.

But no Freebloods, and no humans.

As good as his word, Garret remained some distance behind. Yet he might as well have been clinging to her back; she could hear his rough breathing, the muffled tread of his boots, even the beat of his heart. And she could smell him, a pleasant scent that seemed to complement the aroma of freshly washed vegetation.

She could also smell his blood. As full darkness fell and he moved closer to take advantage of her night vision, she realized that the situation would not become any easier. One taste of his blood had been enough to make her crave it again. If she didn’t find a way to ignore him, the journey would soon become intolerable.

As intolerable as the memory of other cravings...and the way he had turned her own unwanted emotions against her by asking her about her former life. About children, and loss, and forgetting.

And love.

As she walked, she concentrated on rebuilding the crumbling barriers inside her mind. By dividing her consciousness between observing their surroundings and reconstructing her mental shields bit by bit, she could almost forget Garret for minutes at a time.

After several hours of unceasing rain, stillness fell over the woods. Artemis slowed her pace. She knew this area well; after her expulsion from Oceanus she had lingered here, well outside the borders of the Citadel’s territory, hoping that she might locate other exiled Freebloods and persuade them to accept her philosophy. She’d soon discovered that the outcasts had no interest in anything beyond survival.

She looked over her shoulder as she and Garret passed through a clearing where a cluster of ruined buildings stood, relics dating to sometime before the War. Garret was moving unsteadily, though his pace had never flagged. She came to a halt and waited for him to catch up.

“It’s after midnight,” she said as he drew level with her. “We should stop so that you can rest and eat.”

He met her gaze from underneath his hood. “I’m not tired,” he said.

“Nevertheless, you must have food. Wait here. I will hunt.”

Before he could protest, she slipped away into the darkness where he couldn’t follow. She brought down two rabbits in rapid succession and carried them back to the abandoned buildings.

Garret looked up, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion. “The goddess of the hunt returns,” he said.

There was a complex note to his statement, not mockery but something more lighthearted. Belatedly, she remembered what it was. Teasing. And there was real admiration behind his words.

Admiration that deeply unsettled her.

She laid the rabbits down on a broken chunk of concrete and crouched beside it. “If I were a goddess,” she said, “I could guarantee that a fire would be safe. As it is, I can only suggest that maintaining your strength is probably worth the risk.”

“My future strength is worth nothing if we attract a pack of Freebloods or militiamen,” he said. “Did you see or hear anything?”

“Freebloods have passed this way, but not in many nights.”

“Then I’ll risk the fire.”

He removed a lighter from his pack and began to gather kindling. She went to look for fallen branches, and by the time she returned he had a small fire going. With quick, efficient movements, he skinned and cleaned the rabbits and suspended them from a long sharpened branch over the fire.