Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(34)

She kept hold of Duran and pivoted back toward the guard. “Go now. If I see you again, or if he does, I will not stop what comes to you. Do you understand me. This is your warning. I will not step in again and save you.”

The young guard nodded. Took a deep breath.

And dematerialized.

As he left, Duran shoved her away and stalked around. When he stopped, it was on the far side of the guard he’d destroyed.

“This is what they’re going to do to your brother.” He jabbed his finger at the corpse. “And you just sent a guard back who knows exactly where we are—and may even know where we spent the day if he saw us come out of hiding.”

“I have no regrets.”

Duran leaned over his kill, hands on hips, chin tilted down so his eyes glowed under his prominent brows. “You will. I promise you, you are going to regret what you just did, and more than likely, your brother is going to pay the price for your misplaced compassion.”

Ahmare indicated the carnage with a sweep of her hand. “And you marked our place, too. There’s blood all over here and the scent is traveling on the wind. So I suggest that we stop arguing and start moving. If I have to wait through another day, I am going to lose my goddamn fucking mind—”

Duran lurched to one side—caught his balance.

And then passed out, landing with the response-less bounce of a dead body.





20




AHMARE’S FIRST THOUGHT—WELL, SECOND; her first was that Duran had been stabbed somewhere and died from internal blood loss—was not about the cult’s location. Chalen. The conqueror’s beloved.

It wasn’t even about her brother.

Her prevailing thought was, I don’t want to lose this male.

Duran’s life, and its instant of extinction, was the only thing that mattered as she crashed down beside him, her hands going to his chest, her torso bowing over his body as if her back could block the Fade’s arrival. His eyes were fixed on the heavens above, staring up to the night sky as if there was a message in it for him, ghostly symbols of the Old Language floating aloft that only he could see.

“Duran?” she breathed as she patted him down.

There was so much blood on his clothes, it was hard to tell what was his and what was from that guard he’d bitten. And a puncture wound of less than an inch could seal itself off on the surface, while the artery underneath became an oil spill in his ocean, ruining everything.

“Duran!” Now she was more urgent. “Are you . . .”

Are you dead?

Dumb-ass question to ask, but that wasn’t why she didn’t finish the sentence. She feared the answer—

Abruptly, his torso jerked upright with such force and strength, his shoulder punched her, throwing her back. And the inhale he took in was so great, she could have sworn she felt the very draw of it.

“Are you okay?” she said.

Yes, are you?

His head cranked in her direction. His pupils seemed to focus on her properly, and neither was dilated. “Sorry. Don’t know what that was.”

As she exhaled, she felt like she was doing part two of that inhale of his, finishing the relay, so to speak. “It’s all right. But we need to check you out.”

He lifted his shirt and they both looked down at the ridges of his abdominals. Nothing. Then he twisted around and offered her an inspection of his spine. There were no wounds there, either.

That took care of the big stuff, she thought. As long as he hadn’t been nailed in the groin. Femoral arteries were the superconductors of the lower body, capable of draining blood volume like a tub, but in that case, there would be all kinds of blood seeping through his pants and there was none.

“Let’s go,” he said as he pushed himself onto his feet.

Ahmare thought he was going to make it to vertical because he was speaking coherently. Nope. He went down again, to a sitting position this time—and given that the plan had been for them to run? Not good.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He looked at his arms, flipping his hands from palm up to palm down. “Nothing is listening to the commands.”

Ahmare scanned the woods, noting that unlike the kudzu-choked forest that buffered the mountain’s approach, there was nothing but tree trunks and pine boughs to hide behind here at its base. Considering the lack of ground cover, they were sitting ducks, even though the moon was hazy and that cut down on its glow.

And then there was that anatomy exam of a body, no more than five feet away, a beacon for anyone with a halfway decent nose.

Duran made a second attempt to get up. A third.

As he fell back down that last time, she put two and two together and got an oh-hell as an answer.

“You need to feed,” she said roughly.

He recoiled. “No, I’ll be okay. I did about two weeks ago.”

Frowning, she asked, “Chalen gave you females?”

“It was the only way to keep me alive.” He glanced over at the two dead bodies. “And I took those veins just so I could be strong enough for my revenge.”

He seemed confused, as if feeding had been part of a bargain with destiny, and he’d kept his side—so why wasn’t he strong enough to keep going now?

She let herself go down to her knees and yanked up her sleeve. “Let’s do this.”