A Tangle of Hearts (A Shade of Vampire #44)(39)

“Something?” I asked. I handed the fur over to Anjani. She looked at me with befuddlement, but I pushed it further into her arms, and she reluctantly took it. It felt like victory to see her accept something I’d offered.

“You should see what comes out of these jungles at night,” Bijarki taunted me with a smirk.

A chill ran down my spine. I started pulling heavy fallen branches out of the nearby shrubs and leaving them by the trunk opening. I noticed Anjani watching me from the corner of my eye, but as soon as I turned my head to look at her, she quickly focused her attention on her feet. I couldn’t help but smile as I resumed my task.

Serena helped Draven sit on another root and started collecting more wood for the fire, leaving the Druid to hold the burning torch.

“I feel like a piece of furniture,” he muttered.



An hour later, the small campfire crackled in a hole dug into the ground and bordered with rocks. Bijarki sat in front of it with the crossbow armed and leaning against his shoulder. His eyes moved around, scanning the pitch black darkness that had settled around us.

Serena had taken the Druid inside the tree to change his bandage.

Milky white beams of moonlight pierced through the trees above, revealing portions of the road nearby. I could hear crickets chirping and owls hooting and the occasional crackle of a broken twig as unknown animals tried to come closer.

“The fire will keep most of the predators at bay,” the incubus said. “I’ll take first watch on the ground, and you can go up in the tree and keep a lookout.”

I nodded and moved to climb up the massive trunk. I’d made it halfway up, one solid branch at a time, when I heard movement below.

I looked down and saw Anjani pulling herself up on one of the lower branches. Her shoulder seemed to be in a better state, but she still had little use of her leg, as it hung limply in the air. Each move she made seemed strenuous and difficult judging by her grimace.

I stopped and climbed down a couple of branches, enough to reach out to her and offer her my hand for support. She looked at it, then at me, and slapped it away, continuing her burdensome climb like the independent warrior she insisted she was. I didn’t like seeing her struggle, but I didn’t think persistence was the way to go with her either.

Instead, I decided to go slow and continue my climb, waiting for her to call out for help when she couldn’t take it anymore.

I made it all the way to the top branch and straddled it for balance. A few moments later, I was surprised when she pulled herself up and climbed onto the branch next to me. The moon was high and bright, and her skin glistened under it. She breathed heavily, and beads of sweat covered her forehead, but she still looked ethereal, her black hair framing her beautiful face.

I held my breath as I watched her settle on the branch.

She flinched when she bent her knee.

“Are you okay?” I asked, my voice laced with concern.

She nodded with a faint smile and took the crossbow out from behind her back. She pulled on the wire and set a poisonous arrow against it with a swift and firm hand. She’d obviously done this a million times.

We watched over the jungle around us. A wavy sea of dark green and black stretched out for miles in all directions. Lights flickered on the horizon at the base of a northern mountain chain. The peaks were dipped in white snow, which seemed brighter beneath the blanket of stars above. Thick gray smoke rose in a swirling column a few miles to the east.

“They’re most likely travelers,” Anjani said, looking in the same direction.

I had a hard time looking away from her. The sunlight gave her skin a silvery shimmer, but the moonlight was something else entirely. Anjani seemed to have been carved out of a large black diamond, with emerald-gold eyes, plum-colored lips, and long curls of ink black hair.

She shifted her gaze from the distant fire to me, and her expression changed. Shadows flickered across her face as she looked away again. Her fingers fumbled with the crossbow trigger. She looked nervous.

“I’m sorry if I’m staring,” I said, feeling responsible for the awkwardness that had settled between us. “I’ve just never seen a creature like you before. We have our own fascinating specimens back home, but none of them have silvery skin like yours.”

A moment passed before she spoke again.

“Our kind is different even by Eritopian standards. If you feel in any way attracted to me, I must apologize. It’s in my nature as a succubus. We are designed to seduce, and I can’t do much about that. It’s just always on. I can’t stop it,” she mumbled apologetically, taking me by surprise.

Where was the warrior I’d met earlier, and who was this insecure girl sitting in a tree next to me?

“Is that why you’ve been so snappy?” I asked, eager to get her out of that shrinking state.

I liked her more when she was fiery and armed with sharp comebacks, ready to smack me if I got out of line. In other circumstances I would have considered myself to be a masochist for poking at her, but with all the dangers lurking in the jungle around us, I needed her to be strong and brimming with self-confidence. Weakness never fared well in the wild; I’d learned that from a very young age.

“Snappy?” She asked, her voice low and husky and chilling me to the bone.

There she is. I allowed myself to feel the satisfaction of a minor victory.

“There are other words for it, but I’m trying to be polite here,” I replied carelessly. “If you’re worried I’m devastated by your beauty and can’t function properly, don’t worry. I’m stronger than you think.”