Night Quest. Susan Krinard

then she collapsed.

      * * *

      Artemis woke to pain. Tiny filaments of agony circled her limbs and waist, her chest and neck. And her hands...

      “Easy,” the human said as she tried to sit up. He eased her back down to the bed of fallen leaves on which she’d been lying.

      Instinctively she resisted, irrational panic flooding her body. But he refused to let her up, and she realized that he was strong enough to impose his will.

      Human or not, he was dangerous. She had seen him fight. He moved almost as fast as an Opir.

      “You’re already healing,” he said, his brows knitting in a frown, “but if you push yourself, you’ll slow it down. We don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to.”

      She disregarded the “we” and compelled herself to relax. “Where are the men?” she asked, casting about for their rank scents.

      “It’s only been a few hours.” He glanced over his shoulder, and for the first time Artemis saw that they were far into the forest under a thick canopy of cottonwoods, protected on two sides by boulders that stood beside a small creek. She realized that she was wearing unfamiliar clothes that were much too large for her, carrying the oddly pleasant smell of the human who had saved her. Her daycoat and gloves lay neatly folded within reach; her knives, bow and quiver were farther away. It would take some effort to get them.

      She might have just enough strength to surprise the human, grab her things and run.

      “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” the man said, his eyes tracking her gaze.

      “I am not afraid of you...human.”

      “My name is Garret Fox,” he said, seemingly indifferent to her mockery.

      “There is no need for you to stay,” she said. “It would be best if you did not.”

      “Why? Are you planning on attacking me when my back is turned?”

      The question seemed hostile, but his face was impassive. Too impassive to be credible. “If you believed that,” she said, “you would never have brought me here.”

      “That’s right,” he said, dropping back into a crouch. “Saving my life just to kill me wouldn’t make much sense.”

      She began to formulate an answer, but all at once she found herself lost in the extraordinary green of his eyes, like the moss clinging to the sides of the boulders. His dark red hair brushed the back of his collar, as if he hadn’t cut it in some time, and there was a shadow of darker hair on his jaw and upper lip. His features were strong but not coarse, his mouth mobile but decisive.

      By human standards he was very attractive. And Opiri appreciated human beauty well enough to seek out serfs that bore the same qualities this man exemplified, such as his lean, fit body, broad shoulders and easy grace.

      Artemis had never owned such a serf. She had never owned a serf at all, though she had been strong enough to stake out her own Household in Oceanus, if that had been her intent.

      Now, in a haze of pain and caught in the snare of this human’s gaze, she wondered what it would have been like to own a man like this. What it might have been like if he were her Favorite, and they—

      The man jerked away, and she realized that she had been touching his hand with her raw fingertips. His reaction had been so violent that she expected to see distaste on his face, but there was only confusion, as if he had been taken unaware by more than just the touch itself.

      Artemis, too, was bewildered. Her fingertips tingled, and a series of small shocks ran through her arms and deep into the core of her body. Physical sensations she hadn’t experienced in many, many years.

      And 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