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Something moved in my chest. I wanted to protect him, keep him safe.
“If he fails, you know what to do.”
I swallowed hard.
You won’t have to, I told myself. This will work.
It had to work.
I smoothed a wavy lock of hair away from Zaq’s brow. Then it struck me what I was doing. I was hunched over the man, stroking his hair and figuring out ways to keep him alive.
I sat back on my heels.
I was falling under a Dark Angel’s spell. Me, Ridley Crawford.
Just like all those other women.
The man’s a Kral. He’s anything but harmless. He’s been raised since birth to take what he wants, when he wants. Yeah, he does some good deeds, but he’s a fucking syndicate prince. If he sees you’re weakening toward him, you can bet he’ll use it against you.
But I couldn’t shake off the protective feeling. So I surrendered to it.
For now, I’d take care of Zaq.
He’d scraped his wrists when he’d fallen down the ladder. The festering wounds wept blood. Not much, but the scent teased at me.
I picked up one of his hands and examined the wrist. Like vampires, a dhampir usually heals without scarring, but the silver cuffs had burned such a deep line, he’d probably always have scars.
If I licked the marks, though, they’d heal faster. Something in our saliva does that.
And I’d get to taste Zaq’s blood.
My fangs elongated. Eager—no, aching—to bite. I stared at the bloody scrapes on his wrist and beat back my vampire self.
Not to feed. To heal.
In fact, it would be best to spit out his blood so I didn’t risk taking the silver into my own body.
Okay, then. I cradled his wrist in my hand and licked it. Even with the bitter taint of the silver, the taste nearly overwhelmed my good intentions.
My vampire-half was starved for fresh blood, and like Zaq’s scent, his blood was so rich, so right.
I clenched my teeth together and pictured myself with fangs and blue-rimmed eyes, a trick I used to keep the vampire under control.
I finished one wrist and spit the blood on the dirt, then licked the other wrist. Zaq murmured as I set his arm down, and I froze, heart beating like I’d been caught stealing, and almost swallowed the blood in my mouth.
He curled onto his side again, and I leaned over and spit it out. I scratched at the dirt to cover the blood, then got the open bottle of blood-wine and took a long drink, rinsing his taste away.
I tried to give Zaq a little blood-wine too, but couldn’t wake him up. I crouched on my haunches and finished off the wine, then made a lunch of bread, cheese and a strip of beef jerky. Dessert was a handful of dried apricots.
I glanced at the unconscious Zaq and decided I might as well get some sleep.
First, I texted Crow, updating her on the situation—that Zaq was too sick to travel and we’d be in Paris for another few days before leaving for New York.
I’d have to text de Froulay at some point too, and tell him what I knew about Philippe Moreau. But that could wait.
I switched off the lantern and curled up on the sleeping bag next to Zaq.
The sun was high in the sky when Zaq bumped against me, bringing me awake with a jolt. He croaked out a string of unintelligible words, head thrashing from side to side.
