Page 55 of Nightshade

Nearby, it was Viktor’s turn to suck in a breath. Clearly, this was a name he knew. I looked back at him, and there was more expression on his face than usually happened in a whole week combined.

My brother, hyper-competent killer and child soldier, was terrified.

The witch didn’t seem to notice, going on to tell Aleks that the vampire had arrived when Altair escaped the witches’ wards, because he’d been able to sense Altair outside of them, and he’d come looking to retrieve his property. That Ermengarde had agreed to work with him because he was terrifying, and the young witch was half convinced that Ivan was going to kill them all, regardless.

So she’d sent some of her weakest, youngest witches to look for Altair, hoping that the matter could be closed easily, and Ivan would leave without slaughtering the coven.

First the ones who’d tracked Altair, and now these two, since they were convinced the pack had taken Altair in. He looked up then, finally, as though he could see through me right to his former quarry. “And you have,” he said, sounding confused. “You took in a stray vampire. A predator who could kill you all.”

At that, Henry, having returned fully dressed and once again in his prosthetic, was the one to react. He let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. “We’re werewolves, boy. We’re all predators who could kill everyone here. Can doesn’t mean should, and it doesn’t mean will. Just because your lot would kill each other if you had the power, don’t put that on us. That vampire defended us today. You don’t get to assign motives to him.”

And that? Well damn. That was exactly what I’d needed the pack to say about Altair all along, and given that he had protected us by killing a witch today, that was more than nothing. He hadn’t run from the fight. He’d stayed and protected the pack.

I grinned fiercely, and leaned back to wrap an arm around his waist and pull him next to me.

That was when I realized he was absolutely shaking with terror.

Ivan, I was reminded. The asshole he was terrified of. Apparently also the vampire my own brother knew, who’d made him think all vampires were monsters.

Suddenly, I thought maybe we all needed to sit down and have a talk about Ivan.

CHAPTER 28

Altair

Aleks had the presence of mind to calm everyone down. Much of the pack who hadn’t already been busy building with Leo and the others had come out of their homes to see what was going on.

No one from the pack had been hurt, and I’d been the only one to kill somebody—well, unless the witch that Henry bit died. It could still happen, but Henry seemed remarkably at peace with the whole business.

It reminded me a little of a very old vampire, for whom killing had become rote. Only Henry wasn’t that old, or that cold-blooded.

A pragmatist then.

Viktor was right: I ate a person.

I hadn’t even hesitated to consider what was appropriate within the social expectations of this pack. For all that Leo had told me about their past, nothing made me think they wouldn’t flinch at me killing someone, even a witch who’d come to attack them.

As discreetly as I could, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and hid it beneath the oversized arm of Leo’s sweatshirt.

Heavens, I relied on him for even that. If I wanted clothes of my own, I’d have to steal them, or they’d come at his expense. Even just in glimpses of modernity I’d seen with the witches or since coming here, I knew I’d be lost on my own out in the wider world.

And they were going to turn me out.

It was going to be hard enough to convince them to let me stay if I’d just told them about Ivan outright. Now, with witches attacking them in the heart of their territory, I didn’t think it’d be so simple.

If the witches already thought I was here, they’d tell Ivan just to try and save their own skins. The witch Henry had bitten, Tristan, was right; it was a wonder that Ivan hadn’t killed any of them yet.

But Ivan wouldn’t start a fight until he thought he could win it, and in one way or another, he thought the witches’ involvement kept him safer, or his hands cleaner.

It wasn’t me he was afraid of, but I suspected it was more than just the inconvenience of being unable to move freely in daylight.

Leo kept his arm around me while Aleks spoke to the pack. He assured himself and them that everyone was safe and unharmed. He convinced them that the danger had passed for now, and they ought to go back to what they were doing, but more than one set of eyes landed on the bitten witch.

It was kind of Henry to speak up for me, and kinder still when he and his brother offered to take care of the corpse I’d left behind. I hadn’t yet figured out how to disentangle myself from Leo to do anything about the witch I’d killed. Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I could function well enough to see it done, which meant I was fairly useless as a vampire.

The look Henry sent Leo registered as kind, but I felt separated from it, like I was watching all this through a cloud. It took the pressure of Leo’s arm around me to lead me back to Katya’s house.

He tucked me onto the couch where I could see the pile of books that Evie had brought before I’d dragged us out into that nightmare.