by Pam Godwin
“I don’t like him.” His arm tightened around me. “I don’t trust him.”
“Spoken like an overprotective brother.” I grinned.
“Hmm. I would be the older brother in this scenario. That makes me wiser. Definitely better looking. I got all the good genes.”
“You’re one day older, dumbass. And you’re a guy, so that makes you brain damaged by default.”
I stared down at our joined hands, my pale skin glowing against the smooth brown of his. We looked nothing alike, but we were cut from the same cloth. Inseparable since birth, we were synonymous in our ideals, manifestos, and determination.
“What’s next for the Resistance.” I traced the bumps of his knuckles. “More fighting? More killing? We’ve taken out all the breeding facilities in North America. The troops I sent across the globe already found the same success before we left for Canada. But it’s such a small battle in a huge war.”
“We slowed down their breeding,” he said.
“We can barely keep our tiny camps secure.”
Overrun and persecuted by hybrids, we couldn’t rebuild and prosper as a species until every single one of those bastards was eliminated. Michio still hoped for a cure, and while he spent every waking hour pouring over formulas and blood results, I was out there killing and fighting the very thing he wanted to save.
“We keep fighting.” Eddie jabbed a finger at the soldiers behind us.
“To what end? We’ve been fighting for so long. Fighting to eat. Fighting to breed. Fighting to free twenty women from a Yukon nest. Fighting to walk down the damn street in any city across the world. The tedium of the mortal coil is taxing, you know? I’m beat down, worn out, and…” I shivered against a rude gust of wind. “And I’m fucking cold. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, but…” His eyes hardened into brown glass. “You’re not quitting.”
“No.” I pulled away and rolled back my shoulders. “I’ll never quit. I just think maybe there’s a better, smarter way. Like I’m overlooking something fundamental.”
“You’re thinking about the prophecy.”
I nodded. “I won’t win this war by flinging arrows at random hybrids. The solution is bigger than that.”
“Well, you get all fangy around Salem for a reason, right?” He raised the binoculars and gave the obscure landscape another sweep. “You should just bite him and see what happens.”
I hummed a frustrated noise that sounded more like a growl.
“What does Michio think?” he asked.
“He told me to follow my gut.”
“And?” He glanced at me and returned to the binoculars.
“My gut is a clueless bitch.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.” He shifted toward me, giving me his full attention. “Why do you say that?”
I wondered for the umpteenth time about the captors at the mansion. Why did they put Salem and I together? What was the purpose of releasing us after we had sex? It didn’t make sense. I could take an army back there and investigate, but I suspected the property had been abandoned the moment they freed us. Deep down, I knew I wouldn’t find answers there.
Don’t look back.
My mother had lived by that mantra, and I tried to do the same. My destiny was forward, and he had a body built for wicked things. Whether he was beating my ass in a wrestling match, thrusting inside me, or sleeping in a tangle of bedding, he made me feel protected, adored, and frighteningly possessive.
“I have this strong instinct to bite Salem,” I said. “Just him and no one else.”
“You sure?” He yanked down the collar of his shirt and bared his throat. “I don’t tempt you at all?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” He flashed a pearly-white smile then sobered. “So what’s the problem?”
“I also have this nagging feeling that my bite will wipe out those silver things in his veins. Michio thinks they’re ribbons of venom, that I can actually see the infection in Salem’s blood. But it all congregates around his heart and…” I pressed my fingers against my chest and rubbed the ache there.
“You think your bite will kill him.”
“I don’t just think it. I feel it.” I hugged my arms around my waist. “I need Salem to make the decision.”
“That really doesn’t sound like you.”
“I’m not explaining it right. I need him to offer it, to want it.” I tented my fingers against my lips and gathered my thoughts. “There’s a tangible connection between us. Not like the visceral threads my mother felt with the aphids. This is different, more subtle. So imperceptible, in fact, I’ve only become aware of it in the last couple days. Though I’m certain it’s been there all along. The more I concentrate on it the more I sense it.”
“Like now?”
I closed my eyes and focused, but Salem was too far away. I couldn’t feel shit. “No. When he’s nearby, I can trace the connection like the veins in his chest. But something always blocks me from reaching the end of the link, like he’s mentally stopping me from touching his heart.”
“Okay, that sounds…” His laugh cut off at my hard glare. He cleared his throat. “What does this have to do with biting him?”
“It’s connected. Don’t ask me why or how. I just know if I bite him, I would be forcing my way through his veins and into his heart. I don’t think he would survive.” I wasn’t sure I would want to survive if I killed him. “But if he opened our connection fully…”
“You mean, if he trusted you enough to bite him and fuck his soul?”
“Nice, Eddie.” I rubbed my head, regretting saying anything. “This is why I haven’t mentioned this to him. He’ll think I’ve lost my mind.”
“This is what you say to him…” He raised the pitch of his voice. “Listen here, you oversized pain in the ass.”
“Off to a great start,” I deadpanned.
“Shh.” He shoved a palm in my face. “You tell him, ‘Open your heart or I’ll destroy it.’” He swept an arm toward the horizon, his voice high and dramatic. “I have a world to save.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me.” I shoved his shoulder. “Speaking of hearts, when are you going to win Jizzy Lizzy’s?”
“I wish you’d stop calling her that.” He returned to the binoculars, panning left to right.
Elizabeth was the resident beauty at Hoover Dam. She’d taken Eddie’s virginity and his heart—and that of every other boy we grew up with. Yes and more were her favorite words, especially when she screamed them into a pillow.
“How many asses are you going to kick when you get home?” I grinned.
“All of them.” He started to lower the binoculars and jerked them back up, his entire body going rigid.
“What is it?” I jumped to my feet and followed his line of sight to the northern wall and the pitch-black landscape beyond. “Eddie?”
“I swear I saw movement.” His fingers clenched around the wide lenses. “Between the green shack and the old bank.”
“I stationed two guards there.” My pulse spiked. “We haven’t patched that section of wall.”
I spun, swiped our bows from the roof floor, and tossed his to him.
“It could’ve been a play of light.” He shouldered his quiver and freed an arrow.
My gums tingled, and I parted my lips just as my fangs came in.
“Damn.” He stared at my mouth. “I’ll never get used to that.”
I raced toward the fire escape on the exterior of the building. When I reached the ledge, my gaze collided with Salem’s luminescent eyes.
He stood on the bottom platform, club in hand, and his black leather trench coat buttoned to his chin. Fuck me, he looked sharp and dangerous and sexy as hell, but…
“I need to see your neck.” I ran down the rickety steps, skipping several and stumbling forward, with Eddie pounding after me. “Hurry!”
Did any nearby hybrid make his veins light up? Or just our captors? I assumed the former and wasn�
��t taking any chances.
Tucking the club beneath an arm, Salem’s fingers flew over the buttons. He opened the top of his coat, baring his throat. The sight of his glowing veins sank my heart to my stomach. It was the first time they’d appeared since we were freed from the mansion.
He looked down at his chest and back to me, a question in his black brows.
“Sound the alarm!” I grabbed an arrow and took off toward the north wall.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Adrenaline flooded my veins and red-lined my pulse as I sprinted through the snow. How many hybrids were trying to breach the fence? Had they already broken through? Fuck! It would take me a couple minutes to reach it—minutes we didn’t have.
A blur of black streaked by and vanished between the buildings up ahead. My fangs retracted, and my heart thundered in my ears.
The clanging sound of a bell sent people scattering around me. The women darted inside the hospital, and the men gathered weapons, looking at me for direction.
“Hybrids on the north wall.” I picked up my gait, lungs heaving. “Flank both sides of the weak point. Close quarters formation. Fast and discriminating fires. Don’t you dare hit Salem. I need three on the south gate. Find my fathers!”
I continued to bark orders at the soldiers I passed, my legs burning with exertion and fingers locked painfully around the bow.
Eddie caught up, outrunning my shorter legs. “Did you see his veins? That’s how you know?”
“Yeah. Did you?” I cut a corner, narrowly dodged a rusted barrel, and my fangs reemerged.
“Saw his neck.” He positioned his bow and nocked an arrow as we closed in on the wall. “No veins.”
Maybe Salem was right. The anomaly was me. My freaky vision. But he was a freak, too, because amid the mayhem of clashing bodies up ahead, Salem was the only one who stood out, his vascular throat glowing like a beacon.
Hybrids poured in through the newly smashed hole in the wall, slamming into my soldiers and tackling them to the ground. I counted nine intruders before I lost track. Thirty yards from the battle, I positioned myself with an unobstructed field of fire and targeted the closest hybrid.
With a steady breath, I drew back an arrow and let it fly on my exhale.
The shot went wide, as did my next three attempts. More soldiers swept in around me. It was too dark to make out faces, but the clank of Roark’s sword and my fathers’ shouts drifted from the center of the melee.
I volleyed arrows with deliberate slowness, my nerves eroding with the fear I’d hit one of my own. Salem moved in my periphery, swinging the club and sending the deadly spike through more heads than any of our arrows. There was no question whose side he was on, yet none of the hybrids attacked him. They weren’t just avoiding him. They were giving him a wide berth.
My mind raced as I tried to focus on my targets. I finally hit one in the eye before two others broke the front line and darted in my direction.
“Dawn!” Eddie spun toward them, his arrows missing their inhumanly fast movements.
My hands trembled as I lined up the next shot. I would never hit both of them in time, but dammit, I tried. Feet braced apart and breaths even, I nailed one in the eye, aimed for the second one, missed. It’s okay, it’s okay. I aimed another shot. Oh fuck, I was too late.
Fangs bared, he leapt toward me from a few feet away. My heart stopped, and my arrow slipped.
Someone slammed into my attacker from the side. They rolled through the dark and landed against the side of the shack. The spiked club hung from a bloody hole in the hybrid’s skull.
Salem freed his weapon and turned toward me. The veins in his neck dimmed, faded into nothingness. No more hybrids. A visual sweep confirmed the fight was over. I let out a huge breath and lowered the bow to brace my hands on my knees.
“That’s all of them,” I shouted to the soldiers and met Salem’s eyes. “Thank you.”
“You okay?” He prowled closer, scanning me from head to toe.
“Yeah. You?”
He nodded and turned toward the approaching footsteps.
Silhouettes emerged from the dark—Eddie, my surviving soldiers, my fathers. I wanted to run to them and hug them with relief. But bodies littered the ground, three of them writhing and convulsing. I recognized the faces. Three of my soldiers. Bitten. We only had about a minute before they would turn.
I ordered several men to repair the breach in the wall and joined Michio beside Kip, one of the bitten soldiers. Roark quickly moved between the other two, murmuring Last Rites. Jesse stepped behind Roark, tomahawk raised to end the men’s lives before the infection took over. My chest squeezed.
Salem touched Jesse’s arm. “I’ll do it.”
I looked away, but couldn’t tune out the wet thunks when that spike pierced through bone and brains.
Kip lay on the snowy ground before me, delirious and jerking with seizures. When venom attacked the body, it was violent and painful. And agonizing to watch. Especially as I thought about the wife and husband he had at home, anxiously awaiting his return.
Roark crouched beside me, his hands on Kip’s chest, and whispered prayers of absolution. I removed my mother’s dagger from my belt and fisted the handle, prepared to spare Salem another kill.
Michio gripped Kip’s hand, wearing the expression of a doctor who desperately, passionately wanted to save lives, no matter how infected or irreparable. I stared at the dagger in my hand, listening to Kip’s final breaths, loathing myself for not keeping him safe.
My worldview was shaped by my fathers, but my motto was adopted from my mother. Stay alive. Seek truth. Don’t look back.
Killing Kip kept us alive. Once I plunged the blade, I wouldn’t look back. But was I searching hard enough for the truth? What if I could cure him and return him to his loved ones? I didn’t feel an urge or craving to bite him. Contrarily, the thought made me sick. But it was just one bite.
“One bite.” I met Michio’s eyes and pressed my fangs against my bottom lip. “And we’ll know.”
“Is that what your gut is telling you?” His brown eyes filled with hope as he searched my face.
I shook my head. “Seek truth, right?”
He closed his eyes, opened them, and stared at Kip, who foamed and frothed at the mouth.
I turned to Salem. “Can you hold him after he turns?”
“You’re not biting him.” His nostrils flared. “It’s too fucking intimate.”
“I’ll bite his wrist and think of you.”
I stood, shifting to the side as my fathers pinned Kip to the snow-covered ground.
“Move out of the way if you’re not going to help,” I said to Salem.
He flexed his hands, gave a reluctant nod, and knelt above Kip’s head, gripping the man’s shoulders.
“Eddie?” I found him standing off to the right, an arrow nocked and aimed at the writhing man, having already anticipated my order. “Thank you.”
I lowered beside Salem and pulled back the collar of his coat. His strong neck worked through a swallow. I stroked his throat, relishing the warmth of his skin as I waited for the veins to light up.
The wait felt like hours, and a bitter taste washed over my tongue. My stomach twisted and clenched at the notion of drinking Kip’s blood. Was this my body’s way of throwing a cold light of reason on this plan? Before I could consider that, another light flooded my senses.
Salem’s veins burned hot against my hand, each capillary so evenly lit and prominent it was a scientific wonder. There was no explainable light source, and I realized his epidermis wasn’t transparent. The glow radiated so brightly it simply shone through his skin.
“Dad,” I said to Michio, gliding my hand down Salem’s throat, captivated by the way the veins reached toward my touch. “Do you see this?”
He followed the movement of my fingers, eyebrows furrowing and releasing. “No.”
I looked at Roark and Jesse, and they shook their heads.
Lowering my chin, I relea
sed a heavy sigh and moved to Kip’s wrist. “Do I aim for a vein?”
“Your fangs will find it.” Salem watched me intently, displeasure sharpening his cheekbones, evidently still sour about me biting another man.
Kip growled, bucking against the hands holding him down and snapping his altered canines, his hungry eyes fixed on me.
I raised his wrist to my mouth and bit hard and fast. The pungent taste of blood rushed over my tongue and down my throat. I swallowed quickly, pulling on the vein and fighting nausea.
I couldn’t see Kip’s arteries, but holy hell, Salem’s glowed brighter than ever, bulging and pumping beneath his skin. I sucked harder, and the silver things in Salem’s veins froze in place. I was doing that? Affecting their movement? I tried to redirect my focus to Kip, but I was utterly absorbed by Salem’s blood. The need to bite him was powerfully vicious, tightening my fingers and commanding the movement of my jaw.
“Dawn.” Michio’s voice sounded muffled, distant, beneath the pounding in my ears. “Dawn!”
The skin against my lips burned feverishly hot, so hot I yanked my fangs from Kip’s wrist. His exposed flesh grayed, crackled, and sank against his bones, his eyes staring heavenward, lifeless.
A chill gripped my spine. “What—?”
Kip’s entire body collapsed, disintegrating into a heap of clothes and…
I covered my mouth, whimpered. There was nothing left of him.
Nothing but ash.
“I killed him. I did that.” My breaths came fast and deep, but I couldn’t draw enough air. “I killed him.”
“Dawn.” Michio reached for me.
I spun away and wretched, emptying my stomach and splattering the snow in red.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Warm water lapped around me, and the scent of sandalwood soap softened the air. I stretched my legs in the old bathtub, one of those wrap-around inserts in the bathroom connected to the hospital room Salem and I had been sharing. The heated bath numbed the violent shivering in my body. But instead of enjoying my first soak in months, I felt guilty about using precious resources. Guilt piled on top of more guilt.
