and captivity of a Nightwalker.
“Are you here alone?” he asked. He watched as the question caused her step to hesitate and she looked back at him warily. It seemed, he realized, that she was just as cautious of him as he was of her.
“Just me, you, and the cats,” she replied with a bald sort of honesty. “But that’s all I need.”
There was an implied warning to that statement, and Sagan filed it into the back of his mind for later analysis. He watched her approach the kitchen counter and lean over it to—
Valera hit the light switch out of habit, not even thinking there could be any reason any longer to keep everything dark, but her guest’s reaction to the soft flood of light over the sink was explosive and instantaneous. He shouted out, cursing rather harshly for a supposed priest, and tried to roll away.
“Off! Turn it off!”
She did so instantly, but not before she clearly could see the harsh sear of blister burns on his exposed skin of his hands and tendrils of smoke quickly rising up from the affected area. He had turned and guarded his head and face reflexively, and she knew immediately that he would have burned there as well. All because of a 40 watt soft white bulb an entire room length away from him.
Valera grabbed a knife from the butcher block and ran back to him, kneeling quickly beside him as he rasped hard for breath. She could feel and taste the harsh tang of fear on him, and it instantly felt wrong. She didn’t know why, but she sensed clearly that this was a man who feared very few things.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed, her mind racing as she tried to soothe him and absorb what she had just seen all at once. No wonder the others had burned to ash! If they were like this one, burned at even the slightest touch of light, then the brilliance of the stasis fields would have seared them through in an instant. If he hadn’t been wrapped up safely protected, she would have accidentally killed this man as well, even as he had lain there wounded and helpless. “I didn’t know,” she told him as she quickly stripped off her parka, mufflers, and the sweat jacket beneath it. She couldn’t move well enough within them and she was sweating her butt off besides. Once she was free of the bulky clothes, she leaned over him to peer at his hands.
“It’s okay. They’ll heal,” he choked out awkwardly, trying to draw away from her concerned touch.
Sagan was awash with pain and confusion. She hadn’t known he was Shadow. That much was all too clear. Painfully clear. If she had meant to hurt him on purpose, she certainly wasn’t acting like it. There was obvious distress in her pretty turquoise eyes and…
What an extraordinary color, he thought in instant distraction, the sudden fascination drawing him away from the pain in his hands so sharply that he allowed himself to follow the tangent. The women of his people were almost universally brown eyed and black haired. Seeing eyes of such a startling blue-green was a truly unique experience for him. Not only that, but now that she had shed the parka and its heavy hood, he could see all of her for the first time.
As she ignored his immediate rebuff and gently drew his seared hands toward her, she leaned over him until a waterfall of coppery red hair skimmed only an inch from his nose, bathing him in the warm scent of lilies and sunflowers and a dozen herbs of smaller note. Her hair was full of static, and the strands flew at his face, clinging to his unshaven cheeks like delicate burnished parasites that almost seemed to stroke and pet him. Sagan was still bound, but he didn’t think he would have brushed the colorful bits away even if he could.
“Oh God,” she exhaled in pure distress as she saw his hands up close. She turned her head to meet his eyes, bringing the brilliant Caribbean blue within inches of his face and allowing him to see the stunning striations of her irises that so artfully expressed her guilt…and her innocence. He was convinced, more than ever now, that she meant him no harm. “I have a first aid kit.”
She went to move, but he snared her wrist and kept her close, making her turn those remarkable eyes back on to him. Sagan found himself practically bespelled as she looked at him in question and concern. There was an absolutely fascinating type of power and lure in her gaze, and he wondered if she even realized it.
“It will heal,” he reiterated to her. “Trust me. Even now the pain is fading.”
Valera studied him a long moment before deciding to believe him. Her caution was understandable, but Sagan was very aware that she wasn’t as freaked out about how he had gotten burned as a human woman should be. Humans didn’t know of the Nightwalkers because the Dark Cultures worked quite hard to keep it that way. Bad enough those who thought they knew what they were went stumbling around with half-baked facts and myth and fiction to arm themselves as they tried to destroy those they deemed supernatural and evil. Nightwalkers like the Shadowdwellers dreaded what would happen if the higher human governments and sciences had ever learned of them. Outnumbered in population, if not necessarily in supernatural ability, their entire hidden culture could be systematically destroyed, ruined forever by human avarice and curiosity.
Valera picked up the knife she had brought and with slow care she worked it under the easiest accessible loop of the fortified rope. She hesitated and looked up into his redwood eyes, the unique blend of dark and light browns and just a touch of russet red ghosting through seeming full of depth and weight just then. Whatever he was thinking, his thoughts were grim and heavy. Thoughts of worry. It radiated all throughout his gaze as she tried to reconcile the wisdom of freeing this man who was so much bigger and stronger than she was, and who was clearly not an average human, if indeed he was human at all.
In her years of solitary life and study, she had learned much about the different echelons of her world. She was no longer vain and ignorant like others of her race, thinking they were the beginning and end of intelligent life on the planet as they knew it. She knew there were other species…other worlds, and even other dimensions living parallel to the one she knew. She didn’t know what he was exactly, but she knew he wasn’t merely human. No human would burn at the touch of an insignificant household lightbulb.
Sagan could see her hesitate as her fear stalked through her thoughts and ghosted over her features. He held her eyes with his own and very carefully told her, “My name is Sagan, and I won’t hurt you. I wouldn’t repay your assistance in such a way.”
She glanced away, almost as if ashamed of her own thoughts. “I know. I guess I am still a little rattled by those other two.” She began to saw at the ropes.
“Other two?” he echoed, his memory suddenly springing to life as he recalled two Shadowdweller males roughing him up. “The ones who brought me here? Did they harm you?”
The hard demand was a little startling, the anger under it oh so very clear. “No. Rather the…the other way around.”
She nodded to the side and he followed the indication to the two piles of ash dirtying up her floor. Sagan couldn’t help the smile that twitched at his lips. “Made them see the light, did you?”
His amusement made her give him a wry look as she continued to work at his ties. “It was completely unintentional,” she assured him. “I was very upset when…” She cleared her throat, pretending she wasn’t as disturbed as she was. “I’m not a killer.” She said it fiercely, the shine of unshed tears washing over her ocean-colored eyes until the turquoise refracted like beautifully cut gems.
Sagan believed her completely. His hands snapped free just then, unraveling the rope quickly as he shook them out. She went for his feet, but he stopped her, took the knife from her reluctant hands, and with a single swipe of the blade freed himself easily. Then he gently turned the knife around and
