Page 9 of Nightshade

I got him all the way out of the sun and then let go, and the moment I did, he was pulling himself away from me, using his hands to drag his body, even as twigs and leaves dug into his legs. Legs that were inadequately covered with tattered pants.

He looked . . . he looked like an extra in a medieval prison movie, and I didn’t know what to make of that. He wasn’t unkempt, precisely, as his hair and beard were neatly trimmed, no overgrowth of anything. But the clothes were too old to be wearing, and hung loose, as though either they’d been made for someone else, or he’d once been quite a lot bigger.

He kept crawling away until his back was against a tree, and his eyes were so wide I could see the whites all around lovely deep red-brown irises. He was pretty, I could see under the layers of grime and terror.

Terror. Of me.

Dude had just tried to take a chunk out of my neck, ruined Mama’s raspberry basket by shoving my bulk onto it, and he was scared of me?

How annoying.

CHAPTER 6

Altair

I knew pain.

I’d felt blades dig into my skin while my master sighed with pleasure at each artistic stroke. I’d had fangs tear at my flesh just to see how deep they could cut while I could still recover.

I’d chafed under metal cuffs, gnawed my own arm in an especially desperate moment of hunger, gone empty for months at a time.

And nothing prepared me for the searing heat of the sun charring my flesh. I’d swear I was burning from the inside, my heart aflame while the light above flaked my skin to gray ash. I screamed, hardly aware of the man tugging on the back of my shirt.

But there was one thing I feared more than the sun, and the sound of his voice sent a shudder through me even before the feeling of being cooked had left my muscles.

I stared at the man—I’d been certain he was a werewolf, but now, I second-guessed myself. He didn’t have the alluring scent of a vampire, a kind of perfume that drew prey in, but smelled more natural, like peat warmed by the sun and something herby.

And yes, a bit like a dog.

But that accent, it sounded so much like my master’s that a shudder ran through me. I jerked away from his hold on my shirt, but he only released me once we were in shadow. Good thing, too, as I was ready to tear the tattered thing to pieces and fling myself into the sun rather than let him catch me.

Instead, I scurried back on my hands, my heels digging into crumpling dry leaves. I wished I could hide what I was, but my skin was cold and paler than it would’ve been. I was naturally a deep golden brown, but no doubt starvation had left me sallow and dull.

Worse, I had come at him fangs first. He had to know he’d found his mark already.

Only, when I pressed my back against the rough tree trunk, sucking in panicked gasps of air that I didn’t need to survive but that fear drove me to nonetheless, he didn’t spring at me with chains and claws.

He stared at me like I was mad, like I’d lost my mind.

Maybe I had, but not enough to fail to recognize a threat when it stood before me.

He put his hands on his hips and sighed. “You ruined my basket.”

I didn’t dare take my eyes off of him to see what the hell he meant. Why were we talking about baskets?

“Doesn’t matter. If you don’t attack me again,” he said, inclining his head in a way that gave every impression of a dog begging for table scraps, “I won’t hurt you.”

I didn’t believe that for a second. “Did he send you?”

He furrowed his brow. “Who?”

I grimaced, the muscles in my cheeks pulling back tightly against even saying his name. I shook my head. “Did anyone send you?”

“After you?” He crouched down so we were closer to eye level, but I didn’t doubt he could use those powerful legs to spring at me and close the distance without a thought. The way his trousers pulled over his muscular thighs promised that I’d never outrace him.

My jaw clenched hard. I swallowed and nodded. “After me.”

He raised a dark eyebrow, tilted his head the other way, and something in his expression turned softly amused. “You’re the one who attacked me.”