pressed her fingers to her temples and rubbed while muttering, “I never should have said anything about it to anyone.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know, Cole. A while ago. And take that angry look off your face. She didn’t like keeping a secret from you, but trusted me to know what I was doing.”
“She specifically told me to stop letting you feed me,” he reminded her. “Why do you think that is?”
Paige sighed and reached down to pick up her weapons. There were signs of life coming from the Amriany house as well as the rest of the little homes scattered nearby. Once the weapons were shrunk back down to their smallest size, she placed them into the holsters on her boots. “She’s probably worried about them growing.”
“
“I doubt it but I’m not sure. The plan was to get those things out of you before that happened. Be honest with me. Was it such a bad idea for me to do what I did? I mean, you don’t appear to be hurting nearly as much, and you barely even seem to think about the tendrils anymore. Maybe just a little bit of blood from a willing donor is all you need. I’m more than willing.”
“That’s not the point! The point is that you did it without telling me!”
“Would you have accepted it if I’d offered?” she asked. After a few seconds of silence between them, Paige said, “Didn’t think so. Part of that may be my fault. You know what I went through before I was a Skinner, and you would have never asked me to do something like this. And after the uprising, anything to do with Nymar kinda leaves a bad taste in our mouths.”
“I don’t want to become one of those things, Paige,” he whispered. “Sometimes I can still feel that spore rooting around inside of me. It’s . . .”
“Yeah. I know. It’s another reason I took the choice away from you. I’ve been asking anyone I know if there’s a way to fix someone in your condition, but I can’t ask around too much. Between the IRD and those Vigilant creeps, there are a whole lot of heavily armed paranoid people who don’t need much of an excuse to kill a vampire in their ranks.”
“Oh Christ. Do you think Rico mentioned it to Jessup or any of those others in Louisville?”
“No,” she said with absolute certainty. “If he had, you wouldn’t have been allowed to leave that place without a fight. And since we got out more or less like any other Skinner, I’m thinking Rico hasn’t crossed over into paranoid asshole territory. Well, no farther than when he threw a college kid through a window for having a tattoo and fake fangs one Halloween a few years ago. That also gives me a lot of hope that he hasn’t fully signed on with the Vigilant in general.”
Cole laughed at the vivid image he’d been given.
“I don’t know a way to cure you,” she continued, “and handing you over to outsiders didn’t work out so good. Daniels has been working on it ever since I almost staked you in his apartment, and if you knew of any way to get rid of those things, I’m sure you would have told me. You’ve told me of a few times when you were hurting and that time in prison when you fed, which means there must be other times in both categories that you didn’t tell me about. Am I right?”
Once again Cole didn’t have a good answer for her. “So what would have happened if I never found out what you were doing? You just spring it on me when those tendrils get big enough to turn me into a proper Nymar?”
“That wouldn’t have happened. Without a spore, the most they could do would be to get bigger or strangle you from the inside.”
“Oh, that’s a relief,” Cole growled.
“We’ll find a way out of this. I promise.”
“And what if we don’t?”
“Then you can nibble on me in your sleep. Or,” Paige added with a smirk, “you could try it when you’re awake.”
For once Cole didn’t even begin to rise up to that occasion. As much as he loved it when she smiled that way, there was something else that made it impossible for him to enjoy the moment or the offer attached to it. “Let’s just not let it come to that, okay?”
“It’ll get worse if you don’t feed,” she said. “It may not get as bad as if you had an actual spore inside you, but it’ll get worse. Daniels studied the tendrils on his own way before this happened, and he says they reflexively tighten when they go without blood from a source other than their host for too long.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. You just have to trust that I’m strong enough to manage on my own.”
She looked into his eyes in a way that made Cole feel as if she was staring all the way down to the thoughts he’d tried to cover. Placing a hand on his stomach and holding it there, she said, “It’s not a question of strength. It’ll hurt. A lot.”
When he took hold of her wrist, he intended on moving her hand away, but changed his mind. Her skin felt too good against his fingers, and they’d both learned to take their comfort whenever they could get it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When they’d piled into the SUVs again, Cole thought the Amriany were taking him, Paige, and Waggoner back to the club where they were ushered into the country. But the small caravan turned eastward and headed into a small town called Imola. Although the rural setting was much different than what he was used to, the occasional glimpses of Half Breeds running to the right of the vehicles reminded him very much of home. To the left, however, there was once again nothing but trees.
“What’s over there?” he asked while tapping the window.
Sophie was behind the wheel, and she only had to look at where Cole was pointing before replying, “We avoid that place.”
“Is it a forest?”
Her interest sufficiently piqued, Paige leaned across him to get a look out Cole’s window. “Doesn’t look like enough trees to be a forest. Pretty, though.”
Milosh sat in the passenger seat and chuckled. “Yes. Real pretty. Perhaps you will find out for yourself.”
He was silenced by a few terse words from Sophie.
The landscape that had caught Cole’s attention consisted of rolling hills covered in grass and thin layers of snow. Large clusters of barren trees were spaced unevenly to make the terrain look densely packed in some spots and wide-open in others. There were roads that led between the trees, and every now and then he caught sight of buildings that looked to be no bigger than two or maybe three stories tall. It was a tranquil scene, especially because he had yet to see any Half Breeds roaming on that side of the road. Having spotted packs or the occasional stray roaming the countryside, he had a good idea about the extent of the Amriany shapeshifter problem. Yet, this other side of the road presented a different picture. Not only did it look clearer, but his scars burned less as they drove closer to those trees. Neither of the Amriany seemed ready to talk, so he let it drop for the time being. Paige did too, and they enjoyed the rest of their trip across the cold Hungarian terrain.
On the outskirts of Imola, Sophie pulled to a stop in front of a cottage near what could have been a small farm. Once the motors of both vehicles had been cut, the air became deathly still. No sounds came from the cottage. No voices greeted the Amriany or their guests. No hinges creaked to announce the opening of a single door or window. Milosh led the Skinners to a shed only slightly smaller than the main cottage. The Amriany in the other SUV approached from another direction.
The instant Sophie got close enough to reach out for the cottage’s door, Cole felt his scars flare up. “Get back!” he shouted.
But even though Sophie moved away from the door, she wasn’t quick enough to keep from getting hit by it as a Half Breed exploded out of the cottage amid a shower of splinters and broken wood. She, Milosh, and George all drew their weapons, and Cole, Paige, and Waggoner already had their weapons in hand. There were more Half Breeds inside. Cole’s scars didn’t burn until they were almost on top of him.
Normally, three Half Breeds would have been enough to give a few Skinners a run for their money. But this
