through that touch she felt something else. Something that she thought she’d been rid of for a very long time. An emotional aura flared briefly around Garret Fox, as red as his hair, fed by all the anger and passion his expression concealed.
The aura vanished quickly, but her shock lingered. The ability she had worked so hard to erase—the ability to sense and feel the emotions of others—had returned with a vengeance, and a human had reawakened it.
But how could that be possible, when her brief dealings with her own kind since her exile had had no effect at all?
Fight it, she told herself. If it takes hold again...
“Lie still,” Garret said, as if nothing had happened. “And keep that hand covered.”
She lifted her chin, hoping that he hadn’t noticed her bewilderment. “I am not accustomed to taking orders from your kind.”
“Call it a suggestion, then.” He cocked his head. “Why did you come back for me?”
“Do I not owe you my life?”
“Most of your kind wouldn’t feel bound by a debt to a human.”
“You said another Opir had helped you.”
Artemis could hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat break and then resume at a slightly faster pace. “She was a remarkable person,” he said.
She. “What was her name?” Artemis said, trying and failing to control her curiosity.
“Roxana.” He shifted his weight and looked away. “Which Citadel did you come from?”
“Why does it matter?” she asked. “Do you plan to interrogate me now, where you will not be interrupted by my untimely death?”
“You are an exile, aren’t you?”
She wondered why he had chosen that word when he might as easily have called her a “rogue bloodsucker.” It was how he had spoken of her to the other humans. And how most humans thought of Freebloods, or Opiri in general.
Opiri. Nightsiders. Vampires.
“What else would I be?” she asked.
Her supposedly rhetorical question provoked a raised eyebrow and a keen look. She knew what was going through his mind: the same thing that was going through hers, but in reverse.
Both sides in the ongoing conflict between humans and Opiri had scouts and spies in the vast, supposedly uninhabited areas between human and Opir settlements, usually known as “Zones.” Most of the human colonies’ scouts and agents were mixed-breed Opiri, called dhampires. But a few pure-blood humans were skilled enough to survive in the Zones, even against Nightsider opponents.
Garret could easily be one such human. But he was too far from the nearest human Enclave to be one of their scouts, and she would bet her life—again—that he didn’t work for any of the militias.
“I am not an operative for any Citadel,” she said, answering his unfinished question.
“I believe you,” he said. “You were alone when those men found you?”
“I told you I was.”
“You also said you knew nothing about a human boy in this area.”
“I do not.” She hesitated. “This boy is your son?”
“Timon,” he said.
“I am sorry,” she said, realizing that she truly meant it. “I would help you if I could.”
He met her gaze. “You can.”
Alarmed by thoughts of what he might ask of her, she forgot her pain. “I am leaving,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. “Do not try to stop me.”
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he said, getting to his feet.
“I may be injured,” she said, “but you appear to be unarmed except for a hunting knife, and even now I am stronger than any human.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. Sit down, before you—”
Artemis climbed to her knees. Agony like a spear of sunlight drilled into her skull. Her mouth was dry, though she suspected that Garret must have given her water. She swayed, and all at once he was beside her, supporting her, holding her. He was warm and solid, and she could hear the steady beat of his pulse, the throbbing of his blood in his veins. The shock she had experienced earlier returned with his touch, a raw electric current that attacked her mind and body as if she had literally been struck by lightning.
“I said you weren’t going anywhere,” he said, gripping her more tightly when she tried to jerk away. He eased her down to the ground. “You’ll need blood or you won’t fully recover.”
His matter-of-fact statement gave her a very different kind of shock. Humans didn’t despise Opiri only because of their attempt to conquer the world but also because the very idea of feeding on blood was an abomination to their kind.
He did not offer you his blood, she thought wryly. But where else did he think she would get it, in her condition?
“Wherever you lived,” she said, “it must be very unlike the human compounds in this area.”
He pulled his pack close so that he could reach inside, and she caught a glimpse of a rifle stock, a kind she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t one of the weapons he’d gathered from the militiamen, then hidden. Apparently he wasn’t unarmed, after all.
“I assume the local militias kill every Nightsider they find,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “They consider it their divine purpose to hunt down as many Opiri as possible. Do you find that strange?”
“The militia compounds see packs of vicious predators, and the rogues only a source of food. An eye for an eye.”
Now she heard in his voice what she’d sensed in his mind and seen in his aura: simmering anger fed by a deep fear that was not for himself.
Don’t think about his feelings, she reminded herself. Don’t let them get inside you again.
But she knew it wasn’t that simple. Her shields had fallen, and she had to build them back up again. As quickly as possible.
“What was it that your famous peacemaker once said?” she asked, forcing herself to remain calm. “‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’”
His laugh reflected his obvious surprise at her knowledge of human philosophers. “Very clever,” he said. “Most Opiri don’t have much interest in human wisdom. Are you one of those rare Nightsiders who see humans as more than barbarians, killers like the militiamen or potential serfs?”
“How else should I regard them?”
“Forgive me for my foolish question. Tell me—why don’t you live with other exiles?”
“It is not in the nature
