Night Quest

by Susan Krinard

  “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 of Freebloods to live in packs,” she said.

  He searched through his pack, and the scent of his skin—his blood—drifted toward her. “Not in the Citadels,” he said.

  “And how do you know so much about our lives inside the Citadels?”

  “Inside the Citadels or out,” he said, “Freebloods spend most of their time struggling constantly for dominance, so they can build Households of their own. That’s the entire basis for their existence.”

  “It is not the basis for my existence,” she said.

  “Because you don’t want to fight?” He withdrew a wrapped object from his pack. “Somehow, I don’t think you live apart because you’re afraid of being killed by your own kind.”

  “I am not.”

  “Then there’s something else about your fellow Freebloods that you don’t like. Do you hunt humans?”

  The direct question startled her. “No,” she said, without thinking.

  “That would explain it, then.” He opened the package to reveal several strips of dried meat, and Artemis’s stomach clenched with hunger. “I knew you were different when I first met you.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Instinct.”

  The same kind of instinct, she wondered, that had made her trust him so quickly? “And if you had determined that I was like every other Freeblood,” she asked, “would you have let me die?”

  His very green eyes met hers. “But you aren’t,” he said. “I’ve met Opiri who didn’t believe in living on human blood on principle, and others who just didn’t believe in taking it by force. Which type are you?”

  He spoke, Artemis thought, as if he had engaged in long, philosophical discussions with other Opiri, and that idea was flatly ridiculous. Wasn’t it?

  “Many Freeblood exiles do not know how to live without human blood,” she said. “But most do not kill.”

  Garret offered her a piece of jerky. “Too bad the ones who don’t kill can’t—or won’t—stop the ones who do.”

  She pushed the offered food away. “Are you so certain they have not tried?”

  “Have you?” he said, searching her eyes.

  “I want what is best for my—” She broke off and took a deep breath. She had no reason to tell him what she had attempted and failed to achieve in Oceanus. He would never believe it was possible.

  “You hate us, just like the militiamen do,” she said, covering her confusion with anger.

  “Us is a very big word,” he said. “I don’t hate you.”

  He was right, she realized. She couldn’t sense any personal hostility from him. To the contrary, he was intrigued by her, genuinely interested in knowing more about her life. She was afraid to look any further.

  “I am still a Freeblood,” she said.

  “But you’re no rogue,” he said, setting the knife down on a flat rock beside him.

  She was almost tempted to let him go on thinking that she was superior to her own people. Different, as he claimed. She found that she wanted his good opinion.

  But if she let herself believe that she was better than the rest, she would betray her own principles. Freebloods only needed to be shown, guided, by one who had seen a little way beyond the bars of the prison they so blindly accepted as the limit of their lives.

  Guided not by emotion, but by rationality. She didn’t need her unwanted empathic ability to tell her that Garret was controlling feelings that might have paralyzed him if he set them free. In that, they were frighteningly alike.

  “Where do you come from?” she asked. “From all you have said, it cannot be anything like the local compounds.”

  “I live alone.”

  “Without the protection of your own kind?” she asked. “Is that how you lost your son?”

  Her cruel question had been meant to provoke an unguarded response—any response that would help her understand him—but all it did was open her mind to the ache of his sadness.

  “It is my fault,” Garret said quietly.

  The red aura flared around him again, and Artemis covered her face. It made no d
ifference. She wasn’t seeing it with her eyes but with her heart. And now all she could feel was his pain, his sorrow, his terrible sense of loss.

  She had known loss, too. But nothing like this. Not since she had been human herself.

  “I am sorry,” she said, dropping her hands from her face. “Have I convinced you that I know nothing of this abduction?”

  Staring at the dried strip of meat he still held in one hand, he gave a ragged sigh. “Yes,” he said.

  His simple answer almost made her doubt his honesty. But the “talent” she’d tried to bury insisted otherwise.

  If she was wrong...

  A fresh stab of hunger caught her unaware, and she sank back to the ground with a gasp. Garret set down his scanty meal and leaned over her.

  “You’ve spent too much time talking and not enough resting,” he said.

  “And whose fault is that?” she whispered.

  “I should have been more careful.”

  She did her best not to notice the concern in his voice, his worried frown, the compassion he should not feel for one like her. Whoever and whatever he was, son or no son, she had to get away from him. The temptation to feed was terrifyingly strong in the wake of her injuries. If she should hurt him...

  “You should continue your search,” she said, turning her face away, “and I must return to my shelter to collect my things and move on before the other humans find me.”

  He ran his hand up and down his left sleeve. “Your physical state is obviously deteriorating. How far do you expect to get this time?”

  “Far enough.”

  “And then?”

  Shivering with animal desires she could barely contain, Artemis moved to gather her things. “I am going. Do not follow me.”

  “It won’t work.” His footsteps were almost silent as he moved behind her. “In a few minutes you’re going to collapse.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” she asked, spinning to face him. “I see no other—”

  “I obviously didn’t make myself clear,” he said. He pushed up his left sleeve. “I’m offering an alternative.”

  Chapter 3

  His meaning was terrifyingly clear, and suddenly Artemis was furious—at her own helplessness; at his inexplicable generosity, in spite of his valid reasons for despising her kind; at a world that had created such a bizarre set of impossible circumstances. Her mind and emotions and physical senses reacted all at once, making her excruciatingly aware of the body she had so admired.

  Even thinking of taking his blood aroused not just her hunger for nourishment but for other things, as well. Her imagination began to spin scenarios that could never be. Her empathic talent burned more brightly—extending fingers of amethyst light, her light, toward Garret—and he began to breathe more heavily.

  Vivid images sprang into her mind: lying beside Garret, naked in his arms as she sank her teeth into his neck; moaning in pleasure as the blood flowed over her tongue and he guided her down on top of him; urgency building as her hunger exploded into an unbearable need to feel him inside her, giving as she took, taking as she gave...

  She came back to herself, her body hot and throbbing, to find him looking at her with that steady gaze, his eyes so clear that she could see every shadow passing beneath the surface. No pain now, no anger, no sorrow. Only need. And desire.

  Desire for a Freeblood. For her. She looked from Garret’s hungry eyes down to his broad chest and lean waist, and then below, where the evidence of his response was so readily apparent.

  And she was responsible. She had to put an end to it.

  “How can you do this?” she asked. “How can you bear to let an Opir take your blood? Is it because of this Roxana?”

  “I’ve done it before,” he said, his hunger still burning in her mind. “I have no reason to fear it.”

  She wondered again where he’d come from. He hadn’t always been alone, not with such a casual attitude about donation. But if he had ever lived among Opiri...

  “If I take your blood,” she said, “what do you expect in return?”

  “Your help in finding my son.”

  His blunt response took her aback. She felt the completely unexpected and irrational disappointment of realizing that he was being generous only because he wanted something from her. Something he had probably wanted from the very beginning.

  If she gave in now, she would be throwing away the very principles she had worked so hard to establish since her exile.

  “I cannot accept,” she said. “I must go.”

  Garret’s expression changed again, as if he were waking from a deep sleep and had forgotten where he was. His aura folded in on itself and vanished. He rolled down his sleeve, returned to his pack and began to shift things inside it, clearly pretending to keep himself busy so that he wouldn’t have to deal with her. She watched him, her muscles frozen, knowing she would never see him again.

  “I will lay a false trail,” she said, pulling on her daycoat with clumsy hands. “If the humans do find our tracks, they will follow mine. I’m sure they would far rather kill me than you, traitor though they may name you.” She stumbled a little as she took up her bow. “As your own people say, good luck.”

  An instant later she was running...throwing all her energy into every step, hoping that the initial burst of speed would carry her beyond his reach before she lost her breath. She knew it was time to abandon the area completely, and not only because of Garret. She had to get away from the possibility of any human or Opir contact, and lose herself in a place so remote that not even the most desperate Freeblood exiles would claim it.

  True to her word, she laid a false trail, though it took a good deal more of her energy than she could afford. When she reached her temporary shelter, a small cave in the side of a hill, she gathered up her few possessions and left as quickly as she could, dizzy but still able to maintain a regular pace.

  Every step carried her farther and farther away from the human who had inexplicably saved her life, then turned it upside down. Her heart seemed to drag several feet behind her.

  By the time she left the woods a few hours later and reached the narrow path that paralleled the old northbound Interstate 5, a cold, driving rain had begun to fall. Normally it would not have bothered her; Opiri had lower body temperatures than humans, but their efficient metabolisms and greater strength enabled them to bear adverse conditions for longer periods.

  But her energy was draining away a little more with every hour that passed. Hunger gnawed at her constantly. The weather didn’t make her attempt to find game any easier, and she soon discovered that something had frightened away most of the local wildlife...a situation that might suggest an Opir pack in the area. She needed to avoid such packs at all costs.

  As sunset approached, she sat down on a boulder under a stand of pines at the edge of a wide meadow and simply waited. The light began to fade. Nocturnal creatures would soon be venturing from their dens and hiding places, giving her another chance. Whatever came, she would have no choice but to take it.

  Something large moved through the undergrowth on the other side of the meadow, an animal powerful enough to disregard any need for stealth.

  A bear and her half-grown cubs emerged from the trees. The sow rose up on her hind legs, nostrils flaring, while the cubs tumbled about and cuffed each other in play.

  Artemis caught her breath. She had seen plenty of bears before, but something in the scene touched her in a way she hadn’t expected.

  She rose slowly, careful not to attract the bears’ attention, and prepared to set off again, feeling as if she had become detached from her body. Pebbles rolled on the ground behind her. She spun around, lost her balance, and then righted herself as she belatedly grabbed at the waterproof case of her bow.

  Garret was standing a few feet from the b
oulder. He had thrown back the hood of his coat, and his wet auburn hair had darkened to a deep brown. His strong face seemed sculpted out of the rain itself, but he seemed no more disturbed by the weather than the bears were.

  What disturbed Artemis was that he had approached almost as silently as an Opir. Once again she was surprised at his skill. Surprised—and furious that she had been caught off guard.

  The only thing she had to be grateful for was that she perceived him only through her physical senses, not her mental ones. There was no aura to distract her.

  Is that truly all you have to be thankful for? an inner voice demanded.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked aloud. “Were you following me?”

  “Did you finish your hunt?” he asked.

  “Leave,” she said, taking an aggressive step toward him. “Leave this place, before I must force you to go.”

  He looked her up and down with those keen eyes. “Why are you so afraid?” he asked softly as the rain continued to pelt down on his head and shoulders. “Is the prospect of helping me find a lost child so repugnant to you?”

  A human child, she wanted to cry out. Why should I care?

  But how could she lie to him, and to herself?

  “You would ask me to hunt my own people,” she said.

  “They’re barely ‘your people’ at all.”

  “But they are. And I believe they have a chance at a better future than what they face in the Citadels or as exiles.”

  He arched a brow. “You didn’t mention this before.”

  “Why should you listen?”

  “What does this ‘better future’ involve, Artemis? Teaching the rogues to follow your example and refuse to take human blood? Convincing them that humans aren’t animals, aren’t just another form of prey? How would they consider that an improvement on their lives now?”

  She shook her head sharply. “There is so much you cannot possibly understand.”

  “I understand that you follow an ethical code of conduct that stretches to include humans, and that you live alone because you won’t share your life with barbaric killers.”