Guardian by Blood

by Evie Byrne

  “Well, I guess we can do that.” He said at last, smiling at Eva like an idiot. “This is an emergency, after all.” Eva smiled back, lowering her lashes. Wat realized she’d dropped her blanket enough to expose a fair stretch of cleavage. He resisted the urge to cover her up. He resisted the urge to strike Jake blind.

  “I’ll ride with you to your truck, I guess?” Wat said. Then the key question: “Is it far?”

  “No, not too far.” Jake pursed his lips, twisting his mustache to one side. “Don’t think it is, anyway.”

  He’d know soon enough. If it went terribly wrong he could bury himself in the deep snow. It was a risk worth taking. With the snowmobile, they could be home early the next night. They might even beat Eva’s people there.

  Eva’s expression had returned to stone.

  He kissed her forehead. “Be right back.”

  Outside, Wat ducked his head against Jake’s back and closed his eyes as they skipped and roared in a more-or-less straight line to Jake’s truck. The sun’s rays ate through the heavy deerskin covering his back, penetrated the wool fibers of his sweater, and set his back to roasting. He set his teeth and held on. He would make it. As long as it took, he would make it.

  By the time they pulled up to the truck, Wat was soaked in sweat. He imagined that moisture was all that kept him from bursting into flame. The second Jake dismounted, Wat slid forward and took the controls. Jake peered under Wat’s hood. “You got yourself a bad snow burn, son. Didn’t see it ‘til now.”

  “You got your truck keys?”

  Jake patted his coat pocket. “Right here. You—”

  Wat opened the throttle and shot off the way they came.

  Wat couldn’t see for shit in this light-drenched world, but he pushed the sled to full speed, navigating by instinct, heading into the sun and swerving around any dark spots that appeared in his field of vision. An accident could mean death, but staying out much longer meant the same. And if he died, Eva would never make it home—

  “Gods! Damn!” he shouted as the sled took to the air, hung suspended for a heart-stopping moment, and then landed rough, the impact jarring his singed flesh and making him curse again, this time with pain. He regained control and headed for a huge blotch ahead that he hoped was the cabin. As he roared in, he confirmed it was the cabin, not a stand of trees, and turned the sled into a sharp skid. It humped to a halt as he hit the brakes and cut the engine just a few feet from the door. He threw himself at the door. It swung open, and he rolled across the floor in an out-of-control tumble, checking hard against the far wall.

  “Oof!” He sprawled on the cool dirt, his body spasming with pain while his mind gibbered with gratitude. He was alive.

  Something very sharp poked into the underside of his chin. He opened his eyes to find Eva above him, holding his knife. Her eyes were flat as a shark’s.

  “What are you?”

  Oh, this was going to be ugly. “Get off. I’m fried.”

  She increased pressure on his throat, twisting the knife until he felt the tickle of his own blood on his throat. “Tell me why you aren’t dead.”

  “If you’re going to kill me, just do it. It would be a mercy.” All this time he’d been running on balls and adrenaline. Now he didn’t have anything left except pain. “Eva, please. I’m bad off.” Her face did not soften. “I need to stop the burning. Then I’ll talk.”

  “Fuck with me, and I will kill you.” The pressure on his throat released, and she retreated back a couple of fast steps and crouched, blade extended. The knife caught the light from the open door.

  Distant, professional, she evaluated his face. “You’re blistered. So you’re not completely immune to the sun—but anyone else would be charred to the bone.”

  “Feels like I’m charred to the bone.” Risking one last exposure, he shuffled to the open door. A heap of snow had tumbled over the threshold. He kicked it inside and pushed the door closed, sealing them in blessed darkness. Groaning with relief, he scooped up a double handful of snow and buried his face in it, packed it on his ears and the back of his neck. Never had numbness felt so welcome to him.

  Eva paced, knife ready. “There’s no such thing as a hybrid. Never has been.”

  “I’m no hybrid.” He stripped to the skin and lay down in the snow, grinding it between his shoulder blades, where the burn hurt the most. As he did, he heaped more snow on his face. “This is a gift. Simple as that.” Saying that as he rolled in snow like a hog in mud made him laugh a little hysterically. Some gift.

  He couldn’t see her, but she sounded incredulous. “You’re flame-retardant?”

  “That’s—that’s a real good way to put it.”

  “And you were born this way?”

  “Yes.”

  At that moment, he realized that she assumed the Gift was unique to him. He could lie to her and preserve his people’s secret, but if she found out he’d lied, she would never forgive him. What that meant, considering how short his future appeared to be, he was not sure. All he knew was that he did not like the idea of her remembering him poorly. He imagined that he would be able to hear her cursing him across the still waters that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. He imagined that he would dream of her there. Even though she was a violent, suspicious, cantankerous, undersized scrap of a woman.

  “Remember how I asked you if you were a Hand or my vixen?” His burnt lips made the words come out slurred. “I’m asking again, because I can’t talk to Alya Adad’s Hand about this.”

  “You think I can separate the two? That after fifteen years under her, first as her courier, then as a foot soldier, then as her lieutenant, and then as her Hand, that there is something separate left inside me, something called Pure Eva or Wat’s Eva? She made me. I owe her everything.”

  “You are much more than her Hand.”

  “And you are much more than a regent, but that’s the role you’re playing, and you’ll stick to it even if it kills you. Do you expect less from me?”

  “I’m sorry.” He sighed and pressed snow against his aching eyes with the heels of his hands. When he pulled his hands away, the snow in his palms was stained red. Great. His eyes were bleeding. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  Abruptly, Eva sat down near him, cross-legged on the dirt floor, the knife loose between her hands. “Why are you so goddamned easy to get along with? I can’t even stay mad at you. Especially when you’re all pathetic like this.”

  “You’re practical. You’ve got to admit, I’ve found us a way home.”

  She picked up a handful of snow and packed it over his shoulder. “After we came back from the bar, and you walked out into the dawn, I thought you were killing yourself.”

  “I figured. I was angry. I wanted you to suffer.”

  “Well, I did, you son of a bitch.” She slapped another handful of snow on his chest, this time none too gently. “I couldn’t sleep. I cried.”

  “Because you secretly loved me?”

  “Love? I cried because I’d fucked up the job and driven my counterpart to suicide.”

  “It took me a good while to calm down that day—but I’ve decided your evil ways are part of your charm.”

  She laughed. A real laugh. It was good to hear. “Good boys always want to be ruined.”

  “I’d kiss you, but I think my lips might fall off.”

  “In that case, I’m all for waiting.”

  Wat smiled at that, and regretted it. Now that his adrenaline high was wearing off, the pain was moving in, full force, and he had nothing to ease it. No burn salve, no poppy tea. It was going to be a long day. He crouched on his knees, his face and hands buried in the dirty slush. Eva, bless her, piled more snow on his bare back and shoulders while he gritted his teeth against the pain. It melted on contact, and icy rivulets of water ran down his ribs and belly.

  “How fast will you heal?”

  Not fast enough. “Dunno,” he muttered. His head was spinning—the room was spinning, like he w
as drunk. “Never been out so long, so late.”

  “So when you went out you didn’t know—didn’t know if you’d make it?” Her voice raised in alarm.

  A groan was the only answer he could make. Pain assaulted him from every corner of his body, desperate messages of agony racing up and down his screaming nerves.

  “Wat, you’re going to be okay, aren’t you?”

  He couldn’t answer. He slid into darkness, where there was no pain.

  Wat woke, freezing at his core, yet burning, too. Burning, still. Shit. Fire pulsed in the tips of his ears, his nose, his stiff fingers, his raw knees, his shredded back. The air on his skin told him he was naked. He opened his sticky eyelids and found Eva perched next to him, her face pale and sharp with worry.

  “How long?”

  “Three hours, I think.” Her words tumbled out in a rush. “The snow is long gone. I couldn’t get more. And you were shivering, but I couldn’t put a blanket on you because it would stick to the burns. I didn’t know what to do.” She stopped and gave him a wan smile. “I’m sorry. I’m no good at this.”

  He waved one hand. The fact she’d functioned at all during daylight was miracle. And maybe a little flattering. She really likes me. “Nothing—nothing to do.”

  “Do you want some water?” She brightened at the idea. “Hydration. It always helps, right?”

  She brought him the canteen full of warm meltwater. He drank it all and wanted more. But to get more, he’d have to get more snow. He needed more snow to numb his pain. There was nothing for it but to go out again. At least the doorway would be shaded this time of day. With a resigned grunt, he climbed to his feet and pulled on his pants, wincing, and then the parka. The skin between his shoulder blades split as he extended his arms. Eva watched him, wide-eyed, but understanding. She handed him his gloves and pulled up his hood.

  He picked up a blanket and staggered to the door like a moving corpse. As fast as he could, he scooped armloads of snow from the drift outside the door onto the blanket, and then dragged it back inside. The effort left him trembling and wheezing. Once he closed the door, Eva rushed up and dragged the blanket nearer the fire. She helped him undress and spread the snow out for him in an even layer. With a sigh of relief, he lay down on it.

  She knelt by his side and heaped the snow over his body, made a mask of it for his face. “You’re healing already, I think. I can see the difference.” Her hands as nervous as her voice, she packed clean snow into the canteen.

  “Be okay,” he whispered. I think. And cocooned in blessed coolness, fell asleep.

  When he woke again, he was shivering, his body flushing hot and cold.

  “You’ve got a fever,” Eva said. She coaxed him a little nearer the fire and draped a blanket over him. “Does that hurt?”

  “No,” he lied.

  Sleep refused to take him again. He stared at the flames, trying to lose himself in their hypnotic dance. Eva brushed his hair from his brow, smoothed in back. “Does that hurt?”

  “No,” he lied again. He wondered if his hair would fall out of his head. But he liked her touch. In a little while, she offered him the newly melted water. Again he drank it all, and then retreated back under the blanket, racked with feverish shivering. Through gummy eyes, he saw she still looked pinched and worried.

  “I’ll be okay,” he said, his voice husky. “Sleep. We’ll leave at full dark.”

  “You’re delirious. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Need to get back. Medicine at home. Can do it.”

  “We’ll see. You need to rest. Don’t worry.”

  He laughed, and she gave him a puzzled look. Then he must have slept, because the next he knew, his shivering had stopped. Eva was still at his side, daubing his shoulders with his handkerchief, rinsing it out in a bucket of water.

  “Hey there,” she said, when she realized he was awake. “Your blisters have broken. Is that good? There’s new skin underneath. Do you want some water?”

  “Time?”

  “Just dark,” she said, coming back into his range of vision, holding the canteen.

  “Your eyes aren’t red anymore!” she said with delight as she handed him the water.

  “They were red?”

  “Stoplight red. You looked like a demon.”

  “Ah.” Relatively speaking, he did feel better. The pain had changed from unendurable to persistent and miserable. His skin felt like it was riddled with tight, angry fissures, but his head was clear. He struggled to a seated position and drank.

  Eva's face was full of wonder. “You are a miracle.”

  He coughed a little and cleared his throat. “Miracle of stupidity.”

  “When did you first realize you were different?”

  “Uh…well…” He teetered on the edge of the decision. Make something up, or tell her the truth. Under the best of circumstances, he was a rotten liar.

  She waited for his answer, her brow furrowed at his hesitation.

  He reached up and stroked the tight skin over her cheekbones, noting the circles under her eyes. Could he not trust her with his secrets? And if he couldn’t, why did he feel toward her the way he did? The Fox of his dream came back to him. Don’t be such a dumb buck.

  So, he told her.

  As he spoke, he could see the greedy light in her eyes, her trained mind taking in the strategic importance of the secret, and its broader implications. Now she knew, and he'd lost any advantage they might have against her people in the fight to come. So it was. So it would be.

  “Holy shit,” she said softly, when he’d finished. “Have any of you ever bred outside, you know, with normal vamps?”

  Normal. He sniffed in disapproval.

  Understanding, she shrugged an apology.

  He said, “A few.”

  “And their babies, are they sun-resistant?”

  “To some extent.”

  “And if two of those half-breeds had a baby, would it be fully flame retardant, like you?”

  He wondered at this line of questioning. It wasn’t what he’d expected. “I’ve heard such things—don’t know if it’s true. Maybe. I’m not a geneticist.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We can figure that out.” Her black eyes shone with excitement. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  He shook his head, feeling very stupid.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? This is it. This is what we’ve been looking for.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t get it, do you? This is our negotiating chip.” She put her fingers to her temples. “Or is it? Alya has to know this already, from exing Halverson.” She lowered her hands and looked at Wat, her eyes going wide. “Wait. If she knew, my orders would be entirely different.”

  “Right,” said Wat. “I don’t think she knows. I don’t think she can read Paul’s blood. It’s too different.”

  Eva looked skeptical. “How different could it be?”

  "Very different, if our lore is to be believed. Paul was a Dawn Hunter prince, the scion of an unbroken line of rulers who've never touched human blood. As your kind feeds on human spirit and experience, we absorb all of the wild spirit of the forest. I bet he was hard to swallow. I bet she couldn't read his blood."

  Eva offered him the water bottle again. “Keep drinking.” As he drank, she stood and started pacing a line between the door and the fire. "Exing is weird. When normal vamps like us drink blood, we get fleeting impressions. Nothing sticks. Princely exsanguination, on the other hand, creates a permanent record up here." She tapped her forehead. "I agree Halverson was probably a challenge to absorb and encapsulate, but if she's got him, she can decode his memories at leisure."

  "But it doesn't seem like she has yet."

  "Exactly. She hasn't yet."

  "So maybe it's all about timing."

  "It always is." Eva smiled and crouched down beside him to stroke his hair. Her smile turned thoughtful.

  "What are you thinking?" he asked.

  "It occu
rs to me that it would be easy to find out exactly how strange Dawn Hunter blood is." She gave him a sly look from beneath her long black lashes. "All I'd have to do is bite you."

  He drew a sharp breath, and his body went tense. The thought was arousing enough to sear through his pain and exhaustion. Maybe she was right about good boys wanting to be ruined.

  Her eyes flicked over the surface of his skin, professional, evaluating. “But you can’t afford to lose a drop now, and anyway, the only unburnt pieces of skin you can offer me are in...mmm...interesting places.”

  He had to ask. “How...how do you usually take blood from your lovers? What’s your favorite way?”

  “Wat’s curious?” She purred deep in her throat. “Good.” But then she smiled wryly, as if to say she knew her seduction would go nowhere that night. “I don’t think I have a favorite way. It depends. Right now, if your lips weren’t so messed up, I’d kiss you. I’d nick your mouth and drink you in slowly, so slowly, as I sucked your tongue.”

  Wat groaned and fell back onto his muddy blanket, hissing in pain as his skin hit the rough wool. Goodbye, arousal.

  “But, anyway...”

  "Anyway," Wat growled.

  "We'll just move forward on our assumption. I feel good about it. I think we're right." Her smile flashed, toothy-white and confident in the gloom. “We’ve got excellent grounds for negotiation. We should be able to get whatever we want.”

  Ours. We. He liked hearing those words. But he didn’t understand why she was so confident. “How so?”

  “Wat, are you crazy? You people are a fucking national treasure. We can’t kill you off. We want you alive. We want you to make babies with us—babies with built-in sunscreen. We have to find out how this works. Study your genes. Maybe with gene therapy we could all be Dawn Hunters. Do you see?”

  He went cold. This he hadn’t even considered, because it was truly unimaginable. His voice trembled with conviction. “We will not be breeding stock. We will not be taken to laboratories—”