she quipped.
“As is the fact that we seem to have very similar healing abilities.”
“You’re telling me Erebus didn’t have that information before?”
“Did Aegis?”
She snorted and bit into the ration bar. “I didn’t know a Daysider’s skin changes color with the light.” Damon rubbed his jaw. The shadow of a beard had darkened it overnight. that was a very human characteristic, one that male dhampires shared.
“Aegis must be aware that Darketans have a natural adaptation that makes the melanin content of our skin alter in accordance with the level of illumination.” He dropped his hand back to his knee.
“What is ‘Darketan’?” she asked. “I’ve never heard the word before.”
“That is what we call ourselves.” He climbed carefully to his feet. “It’s a name from ancient legend.”
“What legend?”
Instead of answering, he bent to retrieve her blanket, folded it neatly and handed it to her. “Thank you for keeping watch,” he said.
“Should I thank you for saving my life again?”
“Since I was ordered to work with you, it would hardly appear to my advantage if I were to let you die.”
“Of course.”
And that was that. she hadn’t expected him to answer any differently, though part of her had hoped…
She cut off that line of thought and focused on her own body. Though it was early yet, she was just beginning to feel a faint crawling sensation under her skin, a twitching of certain deep muscles, an ache in her bones. It wasn’t likely to get much worse for some time, but she had to conserve her strength, and she needed sleep.
But she also wanted Damon to reveal his plans. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“You need rest,” he said. “I’ll watch.”
Alexia had to remind herself again that there was nothing remotely personal in his concern. “We can’t stay here,” she told him.
Damon scanned the hollow in every direction. “I think the shooters are gone, at least for the time being.”
“Then you don’t think they’ll attack again if we move?”
He cast her a probing glance, undoubtedly wondering why she was asking him what he couldn’t possibly know.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said. “If you want to risk it.”
Gingerly, Alexia shrugged into her pack and secured her rifle. “We’d have to leave sooner or later,” she agreed. “No reason to sit around healing if we’re going to die, anyway.”
His dark, piercing gaze continued to hold hers. “We are not going to die,” he said.
She nodded without comment as he removed his jacket, rummaged in his pack for a fresh shirt, and put on the new one. She quickly turned away from the sight of his bare, muscular chest and started up the hill to the south. There were no more bullets, nor did Alexia sense anyone else, vampire or otherwise, in the vicinity. It seemed the shooters had, indeed, accomplished their mission. With or without Damon’s help.
She was panting by the time they reached the third hilltop. Damon took her arm and herded her into the shade of a large, stately oak.
His touch seared her skin, but all at once the crawling sensation was gone. She worked her arm loose from his grip and sank onto the patchy grass among the oak’s thick roots.
“Rest now,” Damon said, helping her remove her pack. “We’re at a good vantage point, and I’ll know if anyone approaches.”
Alexia didn’t want to sleep with Damon standing over her, but she wouldn’t last even twelve more hours without it. By the time she woke up the shakes could be worse, and it would take concentration to keep Damon from seeing them.
Maybe, when she was well rested, she might even figure out why he thought he could keep her alive if he had any idea just how desperately she needed the patch.
Maybe he doesn’t know, she thought. Maybe Erebus is still in the dark…for now.
“Sleep,” Damon said, his voice soft with what almost sounded like concern. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”
She was trying to figure out what he meant when her bone-deep exhaustion carried her away.
There was something wrong with her.
Damon crouched over Alexia as he had when she’d lain injured in the hollow, the same unbidden emotions crowding his chest and filling his throat.
It wasn’t just her injury. Soon after she’d fallen asleep, he had carefully checked her wound and found it nearly healed under the bandages, enough so that he was able to remove most of them to let her skin breathe.
Yet in spite of the healing, he had seen her get subtly but steadily worse since they’d begun hiking again, though she did her best to hide it. The smell of dried blood was still strong on her clothing, but there was another scent now, a mingling of chemical odor and the scent of illness that any Opir—or Darketan—could detect from a kilometer away.
Damon had no idea what it was. He had never come closer to a dhampir than shooting distance; though he wouldn’t have disobeyed an order to kill any Enclave agent who stood in the way of an assignment, he had been forbidden those missions that might involve such acts.
Now that he wanted to keep a dhampir alive, his ignorance about Alexia’s kind was no longer a minor inconvenience. The Council had provided no information about dhampir illnesses; that was no surprise, since the breed was believed to be as hardy as Darketans. Perhaps this was something that also afflicted humans, but his instincts told him otherwise. Even a mild sickness might become deadly to one as weakened as Alexia was.
And though he’d told her that he didn’t think the shooters would attempt another assault, he knew nothing of the kind. Either the original plans had drastically changed, or some other party had been involved.
After the first sniper’s attack, Damon had been quick to deny any possibility that the opposing faction might send operatives to stop him and the Enclave agents. The gunman had been a good shot, too good to miss unless it was deliberate. Damon could well believe he had been carrying out his or her part of the mission as planned.
But these last shooters had been out to kill or incapacitate Damon and Alexia—or send a powerful warning. They could have been colonists. That still seemed by far the most likely possibility.
If the attack had been meant as a warning, it might explain why the shooters hadn’t killed him and Alexia. Murdering sanctioned operatives would be making a move too provocative to be ignored by the Council or Aegis. Surely the shooters would realize that.
Just the attack alone was provocation enough.
Damon rose and paced back and forth under the gnarled branches of the grandfather oak. Once again he was faced with a crucial decision: leave Alexia under cover while he tried to find the shooters, or stay with her and wait until she was recovered enough to continue. He couldn’t imagine her agreeing to stay behind; she’d drive herself into her grave first.
He stopped to gaze down at her, wondering if it was his imagination that her breathing was much more labored than it had been even an hour ago. She had become steadily weaker since the attack, and he could easily overpower her if he had to.
But then he would have to tie her down, and she’d be helpless. With a curse Damon began to circle around the oak, noting every detail of their location: the number of nearby trees and shrubs, the various angles of potential attack, the approaches and avenues of escape.
Still no sign of the shooters. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there, just beyond Damon’s