A Kiss of Blood (Vamp City #2)(51)

“I’m sorry you went through that, Arturo,” she said quietly. He looked a thousand times better than he had when they’d first pulled him from the trough, but he still didn’t look well. “Will you heal completely?”

“I’m fine.”

“Vampire . . .” She ached for him, for what he’d endured. His yells would echo in her ears for a long, long time.

“I’m fine, Quinn. Leave it at that.” But his tone said otherwise. And she hurt for both of them.

He needed time to heal, physically, mentally, and emotionally. But there was no time. If they wanted any chance of saving Vamp City, and Zack, they had to reach Vintry as quickly as possible. There was no way in hell she was letting Arturo seek out the dying fae in this condition, without her. They would head for Fabian’s castle together.

Even if Arturo fought her every step of the way.





Chapter Fourteen

As Quinn and Arturo rode back to Neo’s, Arturo was silent. Brooding. The landscape was dark as pitch, and Quinn couldn’t see a thing, but her horse seemed to be able to follow Arturo’s, so she gave the horse his head and concentrated on not falling asleep in the saddle. She was exhausted. But with Vintry’s life going quickly down the drain, sleep was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

The rumble of the earth startled her into full wakefulness. Moments later, flashes of light appeared here and there across the landscape. Not sunbeams—it was the middle of the night. But streetlights, car headlights, the nighttime glow of the city. She could see them, sprinkled through the dead trees and it gave her chills.

“It’s getting worse,” she murmured. The bleed-throughs were everywhere.

“Did you tell them my name?” Arturo’s words took her by surprise, yanking her thoughts back to the wolves. He still sounded so . . . spent.

“No. I was careful about that. They didn’t seem to recognize you.”

“Wolves . . . are Kas’s job.”

Kassius, she knew, was a vampire and a wolf. A werevamp. “I imagine it is. Does he get along with the other wolves?”

Silhouetted against a distant bleed-through of a streetlamp, she saw Arturo glance at her though she couldn’t read his expression. If she had to guess, she suspected he wasn’t sure he liked that she knew that Kassius was a wolf. She wouldn’t have known if Kassius hadn’t bitten her to get the truth out of her at Cristoff’s insistence. And if she hadn’t stolen a few truths from him in return.

“No,” was all he said. And even that word seemed to cost him.

They fell once more into silence. She had things to tell him—the bubble, for one. But now wasn’t the time, so she held her tongue and kept an eye out for more trouble.

Movement caught her eye in the distance. A couple of figures on horseback silhouetted against an office building’s nighttime lights.

“We’ve got company,” she murmured, preparing to reach for her gun. Or maybe her knife since she wasn’t sure how many bullets she had left.

“It is Micah and Neo.”

It always surprised her that he could see so well in the dark. From what she’d been able to gather, vampire senses were not superhuman, exactly. They weren’t that much better than her own. Except for their night vision, which was a huge advantage.

Arturo turned toward the other two vampires, and they met in the middle a few minutes later.

“Where the hell have you been?” Micah demanded. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He frowned, peering at Arturo closely. “You look like hell. When was the last time you fed, Ax?”

Arturo ignored the questions. “Fabian’s. ASAP.”

Quinn’s jaw dropped. “After what you’ve been through? You need time to recover.” But even as she said the words, she heard the fallacy in them.

“No time,” he said, voicing her thought. He turned to Neo. “Take Quinn.”

“No way. I’m going with you.”

“You’re staying,” he snarled.

“No,” she replied calmly. “I’m not.”

Micah looked from one of them to the other. “Ax, you look terrible. What happened?”

When Arturo made no move to reply, Quinn did it for him. “Wolves. He’s been in their feeding trough almost since we left here.”

Micah whistled low, turning to his friend. “And you haven’t fed.”

“He has,” Quinn replied, when Arturo remained mute. “He just did.”

The bleed-throughs disappeared suddenly, the worlds closing once more. And once more she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.

“Are you okay, Quinn?” Neo asked, his voice warm with concern.

“They didn’t hurt me. The alpha and I came to an agreement . . . after I almost killed him. I promised them a shipment of beef and pork, by the way. I hope you can help me honor that. I suspect they could be valuable allies.”

The silence that met her request had a heaviness that told her she’d made a mistake. Or overstepped.

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

“Mukdalla’s son was killed trying to deliver store-bought meat to the wolves six months ago. The wolves killed him.”

Quinn’s heart clenched. “Poor Mukdalla. But Savin said the wolves that killed the Traders were from the Herewood pack, not his. I made a promise, Neo. We’ll have more trouble with the wolves, not less, if I fail to honor it.”