Page 58 of Nightshade

“No,” I agreed, “he doesn’t.”

CHAPTER 29

Leo

Even if there were only ten vampires in the whole world, there would have been no way for Altair to know that the vampire who had made Viktor hate vampires had been his own sire. Viktor knew that, so there was only one explanation for his behavior.

He was entirely terrified.

I’d known that. I’d been thinking it for days, really, but this had cemented it in my mind in a way that made it less shocked speculation and more simple fact.

Viktor was frightened of this vampire on a level that removed all logical thought from the equation, and made him default right to self-defense, or at least what he thought was defending himself.

“We need a plan on how to handle this guy,” I announced aloud, to everyone in the room.

Continuing his track as my somewhat unexpected ally, Henry nodded to me as he came into the room, seating himself on the arm of a couch. “We do.” He looked over at Altair. “It’s a terrible question, but we’ve got to know what actually hurts vampires and what doesn’t. Not saying we want a show, and I know it puts you in a bad position, all of us knowing your weaknesses. But if we’re going to beat a powerful vampire, we need to know how.”

Tristan scoffed, and I was seriously gonna have to kick his ass in a minute. He was only alive because I’d chosen not to kill him, and Henry had done the same, and he needed to be a little more fucking grateful for the possibility that he was going to live, in my humble opinion.

He looked around at all of us, and he . . . well, he was looking a little delirious, come to think of it, but he actually giggled. “You seriously think an ancient vampire has weaknesses? You think you’ve got any chance against him? Ermengarde is afraid of him.”

Aleks didn’t seem even slightly impressed or nervous about that. He scoffed right back, in fact, looked Tristan in the eye, and said, “Ermengarde is afraid of us. She’s a coward. Scaring her isn’t exactly a great feat.”

Tristan seemed shocked by the very notion of his great witch mentor being a coward, but it made sense to me. It didn’t make her any less dangerous—frightened animals were the most dangerous kind—but I was sure Aleks was right. She and hers had run for it as soon as he’d declared that he had no agreement with them and told them to leave or else.

Yes, she’d cast that spell that had hit Viktor, but he still seemed fine to me. And also, she’d run for it right after that hadn’t gone how she’d wanted.

Cash kept glaring at Tristan like he’d personally wronged him, which I understood on one level, because he’d been trying to hurt Altair, so screw that guy. But also, he’d been trying to hurt Altair. Why did Cash care so much about that? Maybe he just assumed that he’d been trying to hurt Evie, since she’d put herself between Altair and the witches.

I suspected Cash was going to have that problem with Evie often. Now that she was growing up and the pack wasn’t under Grant’s thumb, she was growing in confidence in leaps and bounds. No one was going to make Evie hide ever again, I thought.

And good for her.

Her little wolfy self practically sitting in Altair’s lap was one of the cutest damn things I’d ever seen, and once again, I was grateful for my pack. They were good people, and didn’t want anyone to suffer.

Altair sighed, but he leaned slightly into me and scrunched his fingers in the ruff of fur around Evie’s neck. “The sun,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a weakness any vampire ever outgrows. Fire, too. Ivan isn’t naturally a witch. I don’t know if vampires even can be. I wasn’t, so I don’t have any information on whether magical ability transcends death. He can use magic if he . . . ”

“If he eats the witch it belonged to,” Aleks suggested, though he seemed more like he was certain than like it was a question.

Altair nodded, so I supposed it was a very good guess.

“That’s good,” Henry said, nodding, and when we all looked at him in confusion, gave a twisted little smile. “He’s not a good man, and he’s not a real ally to those witches. This means if he shows up with them, he’s as likely to attack them as us.”

That was . . . terrifying. It seemed impossible to me, but I knew I wasn’t the kind of person who understood duplicity. Altair was nodding along, so I didn’t doubt Ivan was exactly the kind of monster who would do something like attack his own allies.

Tristan was staring hard at Altair, and said, “I haven’t seen you cast any spells since you ate Kate.” The words were starting to slur, and he looked woozy, like he was going to pass out any moment. I’d never seen a witch bitten before, either who lived or died, but that didn’t seem like a great sign.

Altair rolled his eyes right back. “I don’t know any spells. What precisely am I supposed to cast? I’m not as old as Ivan and have no experience with magic. I don’t doubt he can do it, but that doesn’t mean I can.” He ducked his head slightly, sighing. “I couldn’t hide underground until recently, and I’m afraid I’m still having a bit of trouble controlling it. My body seems to want to disappear the second it’s in danger.”

I turned and stared at him in wonder, and he looked right back at me, confused and definitely a little annoyed with his own inability to control his new power.

Mama was the one who stated the obvious. “So you chose to stay and defend the pack, instead of hiding until the danger was over.”

He blinked over at her, looking a bit like a baby bird, and pink suffused his golden-brown cheeks. Interesting, how when he’d had a good meal, his body reacted so much like any other human’s, even down to blushing. I squeezed him against me, even as he stared at Mama, then seemed confused. “I . . . couldn’t leave Evie to face people coming after me.”

Even Viktor, who’d had something snippy to say to Altair at every turn, didn’t have an obnoxious response to that. So I just held Altair against me and tried to turn the conversation back to what we needed, rather than emotions that were clearly overwhelming him. “So the sun, and fire. And he can use magic, but not always. Any other weaknesses? Stakes to the chest? Running water? Um . . . religious . . . symbols?”

I didn’t know all about vampires, not having Evie’s encyclopedic knowledge of a hundred vampire books, but I thought I remembered people using those.