15. CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 15
Noa
“Julien!” I was on my knees, dripping icy water all over his thick pile of blankets. Grabbing for his hand. Breathing in when his fingers curled weakly against mine. I was pretty sure the second time I said his name, I was sobbing. The ugly sobbing that always made people cringe. “You… you…”
“Me… me…”
“How…”
“Yeah…”
I snorted, rubbed my wet shirt against my nose, and didn’t care that I was a total mess.
Julien looked worse, and I demanded, “How long since you’ve fed?”
He gestured weakly with the hand I wasn’t holding prisoner. A plate lay nearby with the remains of a fish and a… a rabbit.
I swallowed weakly. Not much blood in either. I shot a look at the nymph, kindly, because it wasn’t her fault. “Something sharp?”
She handed me a shell, the edge finely ground. I sliced the tip of my finger. “You know the drill,” I said, dragging the blood across his lips.
He gripped my hand, his fingers shaking. “Use your fangs,” I crooned. “I’ll tell you when to stop.” I was prepared to let him drink until I got dizzy.
He tipped my wrist, bit gently, his fangs sliding in until a soft euphoria rushed. I gasped, panted with each throbbing pull. But Julien fed only for a minute before he fell back, exhausted.
Shivers wracked through me. I pushed upright. He needed healing. Needed Grayson. Julien’s eyes were closed, and I didn’t care about the nymph watching as I shucked off my wet clothes and pulled on jeans, rolling the cuffs, then a shirt, flannel, last worn by a male from the stale scent. The nymph held out socks. Nearby was a stack of shoes. Was hoarder a better description than collector, since she clearly had no need for human clothes?
“Thank you.” I was genuinely, eternally grateful to her for Julien. “How long has he been here?”
“I found him on the riverbank six weeks ago. Got him this far. He didn’t like the water, so we walked. Slowly, because he’d had a spear in his side.” She gestured toward the spear, now wedged between the rocks in a corner. “I pulled it out. It made walking easier, but he hasn’t healed.”
My hands were still trembling. Shivers raced beneath my skin. “I didn’t realize nymphs were friendly with vampires.”
“We aren’t. But Julien has been an emissary for the nymphs. He was worth saving.”
“An emissary for the wolves, too.” Julien’s righteous, rebellious streak, according to his sire, that made his life difficult. I twisted back toward the vampire. His eyes were open. “You… I watched you die.” My voice wobbled.
His smile grew crooked. “Tougher than that.”
“Yeah, yeah, the big bad vamp.” Tears stung, but I forced a smile. “You weren’t there for my grand finale.”
“Did you blow everything up?” he teased weakly.
“Almost.” I rolled my eyes. “But you… weren’t... there.”
He groaned, shifting his weight more onto his side. Wrinkles mussed his clothes, but the material was clean, other than the bloodstain on his shirt.
“May I look?” I asked, and at his nod, I lifted his shirt. The spear wound was ugly, red, bruised, oozing, and clearly not healing. I touched his skin, unusually hot and dry.
“Silver covered the blade,” he grunted. “Burning… everything.”
“Silver burns you?”
“Poison. Disables a vampire within a minute, but not enough to kill. Just… burns.” He breathed in through his teeth; his fangs hadn’t yet retracted. But his color was better. I guessed he hadn’t fed from the nymph, although her blood might not be useful to vampires. More likely, after she’d saved him, he’d refused to ask. Not for a donation if she hadn’t offered.
“What can I do?”
I touched the edge of the wound, syphoned a thread of the heat; what I felt was thick and oily beneath my skin.
Julien said, “Only a few people can help.”
“Vampires?” But he hadn’t turned to the vampires, unless the nymph had no way to contact them.
“Set.” Julien’s eyes glittered blackly. “Traitors near her. Trust no one.”
I stroked the hair that drifted across his forehead, brown, like the forest trees. “Can you talk about it?”
Because I needed to know, hear every word. Hear his voice. Fill the void that tore open the moment fire streamed from Brin’s hands, turning what I thought was Julien into a flaming phoenix.
He struggled into a sitting position; the nymph was quick to stuff pillows behind his back. I waited while he breathed, settled.
“I was gathering evidence. Got too close to Barend’s cabal. Ended up on the wall.” He hissed out a breath. “The attack wasn’t a surprise… expected something, and the instant I felt… I teleported.”
Leaving the man who stood behind him… facing Brin...
He’d burned…
The smoke was black!
“The poison was fast, and I… ended up by the river,” Julien said after a moment. “Flat on my back, unable to move. Didn’t really know where I was, how far away. How… safe. Until Annora found me.” He shrugged toward the nymph. “We’d met before.”
“She brought you here?”
“Such a baby over a little water,” Annora murmured, plucking at the fish remains on the plate as if she considered the value in eating them.
“She’s been my spy in Westvale, picking up the gossip.”
“The people from Azul talk a lot,” Annora said, deciding to pass on the fish. She took the plate and dumped it, along with the contents, into the river. When she returned, she wiped her long-fingered hands on her clothes.
“They talked about Fallon,” Julien said. “About you. Waking up. We weren’t sure how to make contact, and that night, when Annora tried to get your attention…”
“By looking like you.”
“We weren’t sure it would work. And then the others started chasing, and she wasn’t sure who they were, if she should trust them. She came back to ask me.”
I held out my wrist to him, but he shook his head.
“I told her to try again.”
“I can take you back to Westvale,” I offered. “Anson will protect you.”
“The enemy is there,” the nymph murmured, sitting cross-legged, watching me with angled, black nymph eyes. She made a galloping-horse movement with her fingers.
“Hybrids.” Julien coughed with his eyes closed. “I’ve been choking on their stink for two days. Ago has a stench of his own.”
I bit my lip. “Vampires have a predatory sense of smell?” Another complication I hadn’t expected.
“They can scent the fresh blood,” Annora pointed out.
Restlessness set my nerves on edge. “A witch in Westvale,” I said. “She told me the vampires put some tracker venom in the ruined runes.”
“Probably.” Julien’s eyes remained closed, but his voice was stronger. “If they left venom in the cuts, they’ll sense it if they get close.”
“How close?”
“Miles, maybe.”
“Are you still water-shy?” I asked.
Julien’s eyes slitted open.
I shrugged. “We can’t stay here. If they’re hunting…”
“I’ll need another day.”
Annora murmured, “Go into the pool. It’s healing water.”
Julien flashed his fangs. “I’m not boiling myself like a lobster.”
“Can I have your clothes?” she asked sweetly. “After you die. I need them for my collection.”
“I’m a bleeding vampire,” he said. “Undead. Been that way for centuries.”
“Undead with a hole in your side,” the nymph said. “Big enough to put a fist inside.”
“It’s growing?” I gagged at the thought.
“Silver.” Julien’s tight smile worried me. “Poison spreads.”
“What if I drip the healing water into the wound?” I was throwing out ideas, hoping one would stick. “Could the little vampire baby stand that?”
“Probably,” the nymph said while Julien’s grimace meant he was gritting his teeth against denying it. His fingers had curled.
“You stood being pinned to a wall,” I told him. “What’s a little water? Think of it like rain.”
“I rarely go out in the rain.”
“Really, Julien, whining does nothing for your scary vampire image.”
He huffed. “The wolf wouldn’t let you do it.”
I laughed. “The wolf isn’t here, and he damn well would let me do it if it meant saving your long, undead life.”
“My lady, I really must protest—”
“Too late.” The nymph handed me a filled cup, and I trickled healing water over Julien’s side, watching as the raw edge of the wound turned white.
“Are you awake?” The nymph had her cool hand on my shoulder. Her hair was wet. The scent of the Claw was on her skin.
I pushed upward, shuffling aside the blankets that made my nest of a bed. “How long did I sleep?”
“A few hours. It’s morning.” I wouldn’t have known inside the cave unless she told me. “I’ve been to Westvale.”
My hair hung in loose, messy strands, but at least it was dry. With unsteady fingers, I combed it back, weaving the braid. The nymph handed me a rubber band dug from her collections.
“They know you’re missing,” she said. “Hunters everywhere. The wards were humming.”
“Ago?”
“He wasn’t along the river.”
He’d be hiding. Still hunting, though. I glanced at Julien. The vampire was sleeping. Easier, according to Annora, and his color was better. Or else that judgement came from my imagination because I wanted no other outcome.
Julien was here .
I bent my head, checking the cracked buttons holding the flannel shirt together. “I need to get him somewhere else.” Somewhere safe. Until I got him to Grayson.
Grayson would figure everything out. Who to trust. How to heal the silver poison.
“Did you learn anything else?” I asked.
“I didn’t take the chance. Sentries were questioning everyone.”
Surveillance cameras were part of Anson’s security. They’d been everywhere in his compound. I imagined video feeds like the one from Azul. My image, as I walked through the Farmer’s Market. The witch, and then the scene of an accident. When I walked Hattie home. How easy was it to trace my mad rush through the Dock District? In and out of the Red Moon, along the waterfront. Maybe even jumping into the Claw.
If they found images on that video feed of a river nymph, wandering through town, warnings would have flashed. And if she’d been detained, questioned—Anson’s security team would threaten her with incarceration if they didn’t like her answers.
Annora was like Caerwen and Effa. She wouldn’t shrink, but she would dry out if she didn’t return to her river. She’d end up trapped in her human form.
Detention was an effective threat, and she’d have few reasons to hunt for Caerwen and Effa, ask them to help. The nymphs were from different courts. Caerwen and Effa answered to Aine, the Queen of the Forest, while Annora, being a river nymph, would see Metis—the Lady of the Lake—as the queen of the water clans.
What became clear was the need to get Julien away from here. Hide him in a place no one knew about except Grayson. Where the vampires tracking me would find a dead end.
It gutted me, knowing how I hadn’t wanted to see the truth in what we faced. I’d trusted Brin. Hadn’t seen the traitors, those around Set, reporting every little word back to Barend. Or those loyal to Amal and her drive to reclaim power. I’d wanted the fairytales and believing that being a dread lord and a faille was like some super-powered hero duo in a fantasy book. When every breath, every effort put someone’s life at risk.
“How close are we to the Alpha’s Woods?”
The nymph busied herself with sorting her collection. “It is not far. But why would you go there when he needs to hide?” She tipped her head toward Julien. “If he wished to be found, it would have happened by now.”
Julien would have sent her for help, the way he’d sent her to find me. Instead, he’d languished here, in her over-heated cave, letting the poison eat into his side.
“We can’t stay here.” I kept my tone reasonable. A nymph with enough strength to tow me upstream was also a threat. And if she wanted to protect Julien? To collect him?
“You said it yourself,” I murmured. “Ago might be in hiding, but he’s still hunting, and if that special tracker venom really is in my runes, he’ll eventually show up outside this cave.”
Annora’s black gaze skimmed over Julien. Her mouth turned down.
“I’m not taking him to Westvale,” I breathed. “I know of a passage outside the Alpha’s Woods.” Then a second passage, leading into Sentinel Falls. A third would take us north, toward the house of memories.
“I have a back way out of the cave,” she said, her nymph eyes flickering. “I’ll take you.”
“When he wakes up.”
If, when he woke up, he was able to stand. Able to make the trek through three passages, then up the hill, through snow and in the dead of winter.